py3status

py3status is an extensible i3status wrapper written in python

Documentation

See the wiki for up to date documentation : https://github.com/ultrabug/py3status/wiki

Requirements

You must set the output_format to i3bar in the general section of your i3status.conf:

general {
    output_format = "i3bar"
}

Installation (all users)

py3status is available on pypi:

$ pip install py3status

Installation (Gentoo users)

Add the ultrabug overlay on layman:

$ sudo layman -a ultrabug

Install py3status:

$ sudo emerge -a py3status

Installation (Arch users)

Thanks to @waaaaargh, py3status is present in the Arch User Repository using this URL:

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/py3status-git/

Usage

In your i3 config file, simply change the status_command with:

status_command py3status

Usually you have your own i3status configuration, just point to it:

status_command py3status -c ~/.i3/i3status.conf

Options

You can see the help of py3status by issuing py3status -h:

-c I3STATUS_CONF  path to i3status config file
-d                disable integrated transformations
-i INCLUDE_PATH   include user-written modules from those directories (default .i3/py3status)
-n INTERVAL       update interval in seconds (default 1 sec)
-t CACHE_TIMEOUT  default injection cache timeout in seconds (default 60 sec)

Control

Just like i3status, you can force an update by sending a SIGUSR1 signal to py3status. Note that this will also send a SIGUSR1 signal to i3status.

killall -USR1 py3status