polycat

runcat module for polybar (or waybar)

Table of Contents

• Polycat
• Table of Contents
• Installation
  • Arch-Based Distributions
  • Other Distributions
• Features
  • Configuration
  • Command-line arguments

Installation

Arch-Based Distributions

Arch-Based users can directly install the AUR package and follow 2-3 installation steps in Other Distributions section.

Other Distributions

1. Install polycat

sudo make clean install

2. Add polycat module to your polybar config:

[module/polycat]
type = custom/script
exec = <path-to-polycat-executable>
tail = true

3. Place the module and add the font

[bar/your-bar]
...
; font-0 = ...
font-1 = "polycat"
...
; modules-left = ... polycat ...
modules-right = ... polycat ...
...

Here you go

Features

Configuration

Polycat is configured with file placed in $HOME/.config/polycat-config (config path is specified using command-line arguments).

If the config file doesn't exist, polycat uses the default one located at /usr/local/share/polycat/polycat-config.

The default configuration path can be different depending on install prefix used.

To create default config for manual installation:

mkdir -p $HOME/.config/
cp /usr/local/share/polycat/polycat-config $HOME/.config/polycat-config

To create default config for package manager installation:

mkdir -p $HOME/.config/
cp /usr/share/polycat/polycat-config $HOME/.config/polycat-config

Default config

frames = ""
high_rate = 30
low_rate = 2
poll_period = 1000
smoothing_enabled = true
smoothing_value = 2000
sleeping_enabled = true
sleeping_threshold = 8
wakeup_threshold = 12
sleeping_frames = ""
sleeping_rate = 4
format_enabled = false
format = "$frame $lcpu"

• frames (non-empty string) sets the frames to loop through.
• high_rate (integer [1-255] inclusive) sets the FPS maximum.
• low_rate (integer [1-255] inclusive) sets the FPS minimum.
• poll_period (integer >1) sets the period of polling the CPU (stat file).
• smoothing_enabled (boolean) enables smooth transition between CPU load values.
• smoothing_value (integer [1-10000] inclusive) number of milliseconds required to transition from 0% to 100%.
• sleeping_enabled (boolean) enables sleeping.
• sleeping_threshold (integer [1-100] inclusive) sets the maximum CPU load needed to transition from active mode to sleeping mode.
• wakeup_threshold (integer [1-100] inclusive, >sleeping_threshold) sets the minimum CPU load value needed to transition from sleeping mode to active mode
• sleeping_frames (non-empty string) sets the frames to loop through in sleeping mode.
• sleeping_rate (integer [1-255] inclusive) sets the FPS for sleeping animation.
• format_enabled (boolean) enables output formatting.
• format (string) sets the output format. $frame - animation, $lcpu - left-aligned CPU load value, $rcpu - right-aligned CPU load value. Note: always escape $ characters with $ (like this: $$), otherwise an error will be thrown.

Sleeping

Output formatting

format string here: "$rcpu $frame"

Command-line arguments

By default, polycat uses /proc/stat file for CPU polling and /usr/share/polycat/polycat-config as a configuration file if $HOME/.config/polycat-config does not exist. Command-line arguments allow you to set the location of configuration file as well as the location of stat file

• -c or --config-path sets the path for configuration file
• -s or --stat-path sets the path for stat file

Example

./polycat --config-path ./config-files/config --stat-path /proc/stat

In this example, the config file path would be ~/config-files/config and stat path would be /proc/stat