Replacing xfce4 bar by Polybar

Other

Why

Because I don’t use the menu of xfce and the the display of my desktops is a bit ugly.

I have dmenu to run everythings I need.
I would like to use pywal on my polybar.

It can look a bit stupid because if I don’t use the xfce4 bar and WM why do I still keep it?
It’s because with my last setup (I3 + polybar) I had 2 hours of battery max, now I’m at 6.

How

Install Polybar

I already have polybar.

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sh ~/.config/polybar/launch.sh

If yiu have an error you have to recompile polybar.

This is how it’s look like.

This is the instalation guide.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Polybar#Installation

Set polybar at startup

I use BSPWM so I have to edit my bspwmrc.
~/.config/bspwm/bspwmrc

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$HOME/.config/polybar/launch.sh

For me it’s not working, I have to lunch it via xfce4.
I have to open xfce4 setting manager and sessions and startup.

Config polybar

wal

I want it to work with wal, if I change my walpaper every thing have to change.

This is how you can get the colors, it’s not needed here..

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source "$HOME/.cache/wal/colors.sh"
echo $color0

#596398

instead of background = #222 you have to set background = ${xrdb:color2}
I’m testing it with polybar example.

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background-alt = ${xrdb:color2}
background = ${xrdb:color1}
foreground = ${xrdb:color0}f
foreground-alt = ${xrdb:color0}
primary = ${xrdb:color5}
secondary = ${xrdb:color5}
alert = ${xrdb:color7}

Shape

Remove xfce4 panel

I don’t see how I can disable it at startup.
I can add other panels but I can’t remove the last one,
so I made an empty and tinny panel with 100% opacity, he is in the corner of my screen.
I feel like I’m not doing it right xD.

Isues

After a reboot, et was broken, dmenu, bspwm, nitrogen and plybar was gone.
And the shortcuts don’t work too, I had to open a terminal to fix it.
Right click on the desktop > terminal > kill xfce4wm > statr bspwm.
This is how it’s look like.

I fix my problem with polybar, I had something wrong in the config file.
now I have to fix netrogen.
I’m gonna reboot to see if it really work.
And still not working.

bspwm dmenu shortcuts

Right click on the desktop > terminal > kill xfce4wm > statr bspwm.
dmenu and the shortcuts start with dmenu.

nitrogen

I had to kill xfce4 desktop, now nitrogen can run

Picom

The blur was gone too, I have to set in at startup.

polybar

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polybar: error while loading shared libraries: libjsoncpp.so.24: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

I have to rebuild it.

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git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/polybar.git && cd polybar && makepkg -si

This is how it should look like.

I’m gonna reboot.
And polybar don’t want to start, I should start it with an another startup file.
And if it really don’t work I’m gonna create a service and enable it.
Like the arch wiki said I had do modify the bspwmrc.

~.config/bspwm/bspwmrc

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$HOME/.config/polybar/launch.sh

Minor Problems

Now I have an another problem, it’s working fine but it’s ugly.
nitrogen restore the same wallpaper, no matter what, and the polybar don’t fetch the colors.

I’ve created a commmand to set a random wallpaper.

/usr/local/bin/rwalp

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ran=$(find ~/Pictures -type f \( -iname \*.jpg -o -iname \*.png \) | shuf -n 1)
nitrogen --set-scaled "$ran"
wal -i "$ran"
pywalfox update

Now I have to set rwalp at startup, I’m gonna use the bspwmrc file.
The background don’t change, but everything else is ok, and I can change the background if I reload bspwm with CTRL+ALR+r, I love it.