BitBar

BitBar (by Mat Ryer - @matryer) lets you put the output from any script/program in your Mac OS X Menu Bar.

Example showing the latest Buy and Sell figures for BitCoins:

Click to see the full output, and more options:

Example showing your internal and external IP addresses:

Get started

Get the latest version of BitBar. Copy it to your Applications folder and run it - it will ask you to (create and) select a plugins folder, do so.

Homebrew Cask users can, alternatively, install BitBar by running brew cask install bitbar.

Browse our plugins to find useful scripts, or write your own.

It's free, so please donate

If you love this, any BitCoin donations are most welcome, to 1DGoNEYAnjE5DqK7y5zMPR4PLU5HLKpLNR or send something useful (Amazon Wishlist).

Installing plugins

Just download the plugin of your choice into your BitBar plugins directory and choose Refresh from one of the BitBar menus.

Configure the refresh time

The refresh time is in the filename of the plugin, following this format:

{name}.{time}.{ext}

name - The name of the file
time - The refresh rate (see below)
ext - The file extension

For example:

date.1m.sh would refresh every minute.

Most plugins will come with a default, but you can change it to anything you like:

10s - ten seconds
1m - one minute
2h - two hours
1d - a day

Ensure you have execution rights

Ensure the plugin is executable by running chmod +x plugin.sh.

Using symlinks

Because Git will ignore everything in Plugins/Enabled, you can use it to maintain your own plugins directory while still benefitting from tracking (upstream) changes.

Example

cd Plugins/Enabled

# Enable spotify plugin
ln -s ../Music/spotify.10s.sh

# Enable uptime plugin and change update interval to 30 seconds
ln -s ../System/uptime.1m.sh uptime.30s.sh

Then select the Enabled folder in your BitBar preferences.

Resetting Plugin Directory

In case you made the mistake of choosing a directory with thousands of files as the plugin directory and BitBar getting stuck forever, do this from terminal to reset it:

defaults delete com.matryer.BitBar

Contributing

If you want to contribute a plugin, please head over to the Plugin repository and submit a pull request. Be sure to read our guide to writing plugins below.

BitBar app

To work on the BitBar app, fork, then clone this repo.

In terminal, navigate to the project directory and run:

git submodule init && git submodule update

Thanks

Special thanks to @muhqu and @tylerb for all their help (see commit history for details)
Thanks to Chris Ryer for the app logo - and to @mazondo for the original
Thanks for all our plugin contributors who have come up with some pretty genius things

Writing plugins

We're always looking for new plugins, so please send us pull requests if you write anything cool or useful.

Got ideas?

If you've got ideas, or want to report a bug, nip over to our issues page and let us know.

If you want to contribute, please send us a pull request and we'll add it to our repos.

Ensure the plugin is executable
Be sure to include appropriate Metadata to enhance the plugin's entry on getbitbar.com

Plugin API

To write a plugin, just write some form of executable script that outputs to the standard output.
Multiple lines will be cycled through over and over.
If your output contians a line consisting only of ---, the lines below it will appear in the dropdown for that plugin, but won't appear in the menu bar itself.
Your lines might contain | to separate the title from other parameters, such as...
- href=.. to make the dropdown items clickable
- color=.. to change their text color. eg. color=red or color=#ff0000
- font=.. to change their text font. eg. font=UbuntuMono-Bold
- size=.. to change their text size. eg. size=12
- bash=.. to make the dropdown run a given script terminal with your script e.g. bash="/Users/user/BitBar_Plugins/scripts/nginx.restart.sh --verbose"
- terminal=.. start bash script without opening Terminal. true or false
- refresh=.. to make the dropdown items refresh the plugin it belongs to
- dropdown=.. May be set to true or false. If false, the line will only appear and cycle in the status bar but not in the dropdown
- length=.. to truncate the line to the specified number of characters. A … will be added to any truncated strings, as well as a tooltip displaying the full string. eg. length=10

Metadata

To enhance your entry on getbitbar.com, add the following metadata to your source code (usually in comments somewhere):

# <bitbar.title>Title goes here</bitbar.title>
# <bitbar.version>v1.0</bitbar.version>
# <bitbar.author>Your Name</bitbar.author>
# <bitbar.author.github>your-github-username</bitbar.author.github>
# <bitbar.desc>Short description of what your plugin does.</bitbar.desc>
# <bitbar.image>http://www.hosted-somewhere/pluginimage</bitbar.image>
# <bitbar.dependencies>python,ruby,node</bitbar.dependencies>
# <bitbar.abouturl>http://url-to-about.com/</bitbar.abouturl>

The comments can be anything
bitbar.title - The title of the plugin
bitbar.version - The version of the plugin (start with v1.0)
bitbar.author - Your name
bitbar.author.github - Your github username (without @)
bitbar.desc - A short description of what your plugin does
bitbar.image - A hosted image showing a preview of your plugin (ideally open)
bitbar.dependencies - Comma separated list of dependencies
bitbar.abouturl - Absolute URL to about information

For a real example, see the Cycle text and detail plugin source code.

Useful tips

If you're writing scripts, ensure it has a shebang at the top.
You can add to PATH by including something like export PATH='/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:$PATH' in your plugin script.
You can use emoji in the output (find an example in the Music/vox Plugin).
If your bash script generates text in another language, set the LANG variable with: export LANG="es_ES.UTF-8" (for Spanish) to show the text in correct format.

Examples

One line plugin

#!/bin/bash
date

Multi-line plugin

#!/bin/bash

# the current date and time
date

# the current username
echo $USER

# the current user id
id -u

Multi-line plugin with extra data

#!/bin/bash
echo "One"
echo "Two"
echo "Three"
echo "---"
echo "Four"
echo "Five"
echo "Six"

Only One, Two and Three will appear in the top bar
Clicking the plugin menu item will show all lines

Multi-line plugin with links and colors

#!/bin/bash
curl -m 1 http://example.com -I >/dev/null 2>&1
[ $? -gt 0 ] && echo "FAIL | color=red" || echo "OK | color=green"
echo "---"
echo "Show Graphs | color=#123def href=http://example.com/graph?foo=bar"
echo "Show KPI Report | color=purple href=http://example.com/report"

Multi-line plugin with fonts and colors

#!/bin/zsh
FONT=( 'size=14' 'font=UbuntuMono' )
if ((0)); then echo "DO | $FONT color=orange"
else           echo "DO | $FONT color=cadetblue"
echo "---"
...

Tested languages

Anything that can write to standard out is supported, but here is a list that have been explicitly tested.

Ruby
Status: Working
Output: puts "your string here"
Python2
Status: Working
Output: print "your string here"
Python3
Status: Working
Output: print("your string here")
JavaScript (node)
Status: Working
Caveats: Shebang has to be in the format #!/usr/bin/env /path/to/the/node/executable
Output: console.log("your string here")
Notes: 1. process.stdout.write doesn't output desired text. 1. There may be a better way to run JavaScript files.
CoffeeScript (coffee)
Status: Working
Caveats: 1. Shebang has to be in the format #!/usr/bin/env /path/to/the/coffee/executable 1. coffee shebang also had to be modified.
1. #!/usr/bin/env /path/to/the/node/executable
Output: console.log "your string here"
Notes: 1. process.stdout.write doesn't output desired text. 1. There may be a better way to run CoffeeScript files.
Swift (Interpreted)
Status: Working
Output: print("your string here")
Swift (Compiled)
Status: Working
Caveats: You still need a file extension (file.1s.cswift)
Output: print("your string here")
Notes: 1. To compile a swift file, use: xcrun -sdk macosx swiftc -o file.1s.cswift file.1s.swift
Go (Interpreted)
Status: Working
Caveats: 1. Your script's shebang must be: //usr/env/bin go run $0 $@; exit 1. go must be in your PATH
Output: Println("your string here")
Go (Compiled)
Status: Working
Caveats: You still need a file extension (file.1s.cgo)
Output: Println("your string here")
Notes 1. To compile a Go file, use: go build file.1s.go
Lisp
Status: Working
Caveats: lisp/clisp must be in your PATH
Output: (format t "your string here")

ElRochito/bitbar