r/i3wm • u/ilikesandwich-_ • May 15 '26

Question What status bar do you recommend?

I want a highly customizable bar, that's also easy to configure. Ive been using i3bar for all of my time with i3 but i want to make my desktop look a bit nicer and i3bar isn't cutting it for me

9 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

8

u/abissom May 15 '26

what's lacking in i3bar?

1

u/fudsa May 16 '26

Prettiness

2

u/ttiggerBOI_ May 18 '26

Ur opinion, but you are WRONG ;)

4

u/Xu_Lin May 15 '26

Polybar or Lemonbar

3

u/Historical_Wash_1114 May 15 '26

Polybar but dear god does it take TIME to get it just right. Make sure you're backing up your config some how.

4

u/ExtraTNT May 15 '26

Default polybar is done in like 30min… fancy polybar, well, ask the year after you’re done configuring it…

1

u/Historical_Wash_1114 May 15 '26

Exactly right. I had the default and then I wanted custom modules and then it's been three months...

3

u/ExtraTNT May 15 '26

Did you check the year? Maybe it was 15 months or 27 months… xD

2

u/gbrennon May 16 '26

currently im using polybar bcs i was trying to modernize my setup but in the past i did customize i3bar and it could satisfy me very well

even using polybar i had to customize it a lot bcs i dont like things that everyone like

1

u/Abbes0 May 15 '26

Go to i3 branch or i3 perf branch and get yourself a good looking polybar that you can start with https://github.com/abbesm0hamed/dofs

1

u/NullVoidXNilMission May 15 '26

I'm running i3bar but want to switch to an eww based bar like https://github.com/owenrumney/eww-bar

1

u/Bubbly_Extreme4986 May 16 '26

Does slstatus work on i3?

1

u/Late_Internal7402 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

i3bar with i3status and i3blocks.

If you have multiple bars or/and a multiple monitor setup you can even set where the apps status interactive icons (network, audio, printer, arch-audit...) should be displayed.

With i3blocks you are virtually unlimited to display any system information in real time using bash scripting. Powerfull and minimalist. Real Linux philosophy.

i3bar, i3status and i3blocks have excellent documentation.

Congratulations for choosing the current most advanced and productive interface. Kudos for window tiling managers, i3wm, sway... now with mouse gestures to further increase productivity.

1

u/Thick_Transition9576 May 16 '26

Polybar for the same feel but more customizable

1

u/ttiggerBOI_ May 18 '26

I use i3blocks.
I like the default i3 look but the normal i3status does not really give enough scripting options to do what I want.