(Yes, it is super-ugly, but understand that it's in it's barebones form at the moment)

oxidebar

A lightweight, efficient status bar for Wayland compositors, written in Rust.

Why oxidebar?

• Extremely low resource usage: 30-34MB RAM (vs 40-46MB for waybar)
• Minimal CPU overhead: ≤0.1% CPU usage (vs 0.2-0.3% for waybar)
• Fast updates: 200ms refresh rate for snappy workspace switching
• Simple codebase: Easy to understand and modify
• Configurable: TOML-based configuration similar to waybar

Built specifically for tiling Wayland compositors like niri, with a focus on performance and simplicity.

Features

• ✅ Niri workspace integration
• ✅ Battery status with color-coded warnings
• ✅ Network status
• ✅ Clock with customizable format
• ✅ Configurable colors and layout
• ✅ Left/center/right module positioning (like waybar)

Installation

Quick install (recommended)

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/oxidebar
cd oxidebar
chmod +x install.sh
./install.sh

This will build and install oxidebar to /usr/local/bin/, making it available system-wide.

Manual installation

git clone https://github.com/yourusername/oxidebar
cd oxidebar
cargo build --release
sudo cp target/release/oxidebar /usr/local/bin/

Verify installation

which oxidebar
# Should output: /usr/local/bin/oxidebar

oxidebar --version
# Should output: oxidebar 0.1.0

Dependencies

• Rust 1.70+
• Wayland compositor with layer-shell support
• For niri workspace support: niri compositor

Configuration

oxidebar looks for its configuration at ~/.config/oxidebar/config.toml. On first run, it will create a default configuration file.

Example configuration

height = 30

modules_left = ["workspaces"]
modules_center = []
modules_right = ["network", "battery", "clock"]

[style]
background = "#1e1e2e"
foreground = "#cdd6f4"
accent = "#89b4fa"
warning = "#f9e2af"
critical = "#f38ba8"
padding = 10
module_spacing = 15
font_size = 12

[module_config.workspaces]
format = "{idx}"
show_empty = true

[module_config.battery]
format = "{icon} {percentage}%"
show_icon = true
warning_threshold = 30
critical_threshold = 15

[module_config.network]
format = "{icon} {ifname}"
show_icon = true

[module_config.clock]
format = "%H:%M:%S"

Color themes

The default configuration uses Catppuccin Mocha colors. You can customize any color using hex codes:

[style]
background = "#282828"  # Gruvbox dark
foreground = "#ebdbb2"
accent = "#83a598"

Clock formats

Use strftime format strings:

• "%H:%M:%S" → 14:30:45
• "%I:%M %p" → 02:30 PM
• "%a %b %d, %H:%M" → Mon Jan 15, 14:30

Usage

Starting oxidebar

oxidebar

With niri

Add to your niri config (~/.config/niri/config.kdl):

spawn-at-startup "oxidebar"

Autostart with other compositors

For other Wayland compositors, add oxidebar to your autostart configuration.

Performance

Benchmarked on a typical system:

Metric	oxidebar	waybar
RAM usage	30-34 MB	40-46 MB
CPU usage	≤0.1%	0.2-0.3%
Update latency	200ms	1000ms

Roadmap

• More modules (CPU, memory, disk usage)
• Click handlers for modules
• Better font rendering (TrueType fonts)
• Custom module separators
• Icon support
• Multiple bar instances
• Tooltip support
• Module animations

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! This is a learning project focused on understanding Wayland protocols and efficient system programming in Rust.

License

MIT

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by waybar
• Built for niri compositor
• Uses smithay-client-toolkit for Wayland layer-shell support