Dzen - ArchWiki

# Dzen

Dzen is "a general purpose messaging, notification and menuing program for X11. It was designed to be scriptable in any language and integrate well with window managers like dwm, wmii and xmonad though it will work with any window manager."

## Installation

Install the dzen2 package which is available in the official repositories which includes Xft, XPM, and Xinerama support.

Note: Xft doesn't seem to work with the official package. Alternatively, you can install the dzen2-xft-xpm-xinerama-git package located in the AUR with Xft, XPM and Xinerama support.

## Configuration

Dzen is able to read font and color settings from X resources. As an example, you can add following lines to `~/.Xresources`:

    dzen2.font:       -*-fixed-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
    dzen2.foreground: #22EE11
    dzen2.background: black

## Tips and tricks

### Using custom fonts with dzen

Dzen follows the X Logical Font Description so it will only find fonts in the X font path. See Fonts#Older_applications for details.

### Dzen and Conky

Conky can be used to pipe information directly to dzen for output in a status bar. This can be done with Conky in the official repositories and also with conky-cli, a stripped-down version of the Conky status utility from the AUR.

The following example displays the average load values in red and the current time in the default dzen foreground colour:

    ~/.conkyrc

     background no
     out_to_console yes
     out_to_x no
     update_interval 1.0
     total_run_times 0
     use_spacer none

     TEXT
     ^fg(\#ff0000)${loadavg 1 2 3} ^fg()${time %a %b %d %I:%M%P}

    ~/bin/dzconky

     #!/bin/sh

     FG='#aaaaaa'
     BG='#1a1a1a'
     FONT='-*-terminus-*-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-*-*-iso8859-*'
     conky | dzen2 -e - -h '16' -w '600' -ta r -fg $FG -bg $BG -fn $FONT &

Simply execute `dzconky` in your startup scripts.

### Clickable areas and popups

dzen2 allows you to define clickable areas using `^ca(button, command)Text^ca()`. You can use this property to create popups giving arbitrary information, as seen in various screenshot gifs like this and this.

A simple example can be:

    sysinfo_popup.sh

     #/bin/bash

     #A simple popup showing system information

     HOST=$(uname -n)
     KERNEL=$(uname -r)
     UPTIME=$( uptime | sed 's/.* up //' | sed 's/[0-9]* us.*//' | sed 's/ day, /d /'\
              | sed 's/ days, /d /' | sed 's/:/h /' | sed 's/ min//'\
                |  sed 's/,/m/' | sed 's/  / /')
     PACKAGES=$(pacman -Q | wc -l)
     UPDATED=$(awk '/upgraded/ {line=$0;} END { $0=line; gsub(/[\[\]]/,"",$0); \
              printf "%s %s",$1,$2;}' /var/log/pacman.log)

     (
     echo "System Information" # Fist line goes to title
     # The following lines go to slave window
     echo "Host: $HOST "
     echo "Kernel: $KERNEL"
     echo "Uptime: $UPTIME "
     echo "Pacman: $PACKAGES packages"
     echo "Last updated on: $UPDATED"
     ) | dzen2 -p -x "500" -y "30" -w "220" -l "5" -sa 'l' -ta 'c'\
        -title-name 'popup_sysinfo' -e 'onstart=uncollapse;button1=exit;button3=exit'

     # "onstart=uncollapse" ensures that slave window is visible from start.

Save this script and make it executable and then use the `^ca()` attribute in your conkyrc (or the script that you pipe to dzen2) to trigger it.

    ^ca(1,<path to your script>)Sysinfo^ca()

This will bind the script to mouse button 1 and execute it when it is clicked over the text.

### Enabling Xft support for dzen

Note: You need to install the libxft package.

As of SVN revision 241 (development), dzen2 has optional support for Xft. To enable Xft support, build dzen2 with these options by editing `config.mk`:

    config.mk

     ## Option: With Xinerama and XPM and XFT
     LIBS = -L/usr/lib -lc -L${X11LIB} -lX11 -lXinerama -lXpm $(pkg-config --libs xft)
     CFLAGS = -Wall -Os ${INCS} -DVERSION=\"${VERSION}\" -DDZEN_XINERAMA -DDZEN_XPM -DDZEN_XFT $(pkg-config --cflags xft)

To check libxft support, you can use this command:

    echo "hello world" | dzen2 -fn 'Times New Roman' -p

## See also

- Official website, wiki, and source

Forum threads

- 2007-12-04 - Arch Linux - dzen & xmobar Hacking Thread

Categories:

- Application launchers
- Eye candy
- Status monitoring and notification