py3status v3.3

Ok I slacked by not posting for v3.1 and v3.2 and I should have since those previous versions were awesome and feature rich.

But v3.3 is another major milestone which was made possible by tremendous contributions from @tobes as usual and also greatly thanks to the hard work of @guiniol and @pferate who I'd like to mention and thank again !

Also, I'd like to mention that @tobes has become the first collaborator of the py3status project !

Instead of doing a changelog review, I'll highlight some of the key features that got introduced and extended during those versions.

The py3 helper¶

Writing powerful py3status modules have never been so easy thanks to the py3 helper !

This magical object is added automatically to modules and provides a lot of useful methods to help normalize and enhance modules capabilities. This is a non exhaustive list of such methods:

format_units: to pretty format units (KB, MB etc)
notify_user: send a notification to the user
time_in: to handle module cache expiration easily
safe_format: use the extended formatter to handle the module's output in a powerful way (see below)
check_commands: check if the listed commands are available on the system
command_run: execute the given command
command_output: execute the command and get its output
play_sound: sound notifications !

Powerful control over the modules' output¶

Using the self.py3.safe_format helper will unleash a feature rich formatter that one can use to conditionally select the output of a module based on its content.

Square brackets [] can be used. The content of them will be removed from the output if there is no valid placeholder contained within. They can also be nested.
A pipe (vertical bar) | can be used to divide sections the first valid section only will be shown in the output.
A backslash \ can be used to escape a character eg [ will show [ in the output.
\? is special and is used to provide extra commands to the format string, example \?color=#FF00FF. Multiple commands can be given using an ampersand & as a separator, example \?color=#FF00FF&show.
{<placeholder>} will be converted, or removed if it is None or empty. Formatting can also be applied to the placeholder eg {number:03.2f}.

Example format_string:¶

This will show artist - title if artist is present, title if title but no artist, and file if file is present but not artist or title.

"[[{artist} - ]{title}]|{file}"

New modules, on and on !¶

new clock module to display multiple times and dates informations in a flexible way, by @tobes
new coin_balance module to display balances of diverse crypto-currencies, by Felix Morgner
new diskdata module to shows both usage data and IO data from disks, by @guiniol
new exchange_rate module to check for your favorite currency rates, by @tobes
new file_status module to check the presence of a file, by @ritze
new frame module to group and display multiple modules inline, by @tobes
new gpmdp module for Google Play Music Desktop Player by @Spirotot
new kdeconnector module to display information about Android devices, by @ritze
new mpris module to control MPRIS enabled music players, by @ritze
new net_iplist module to display interfaces and their IPv4 and IPv6 IP addresses, by @guiniol
new process_status module to check the presence of a process, by @ritze
new rainbow module to enlight your day, by @tobes
new tcp_status module to check for a given TCP port on a host, by @ritze

Changelog¶

The changelog is very big and the next 3.4 milestone is very promising with amazing new features giving you even more power over your i3bar, stay tuned !

Thank you contributors¶

Still a lot of new timer contributors which I take great pride in as I see it as py3status being an accessible project.

@btall
@chezstov
@coxley
Felix Morgner
Gabriel Féron
@guiniol
@inclementweather
@jakubjedelsky
Jan Mrázek
@m45t3r
Maxim Baz
@pferate
@ritze
@rixx
@Spirotot
@Stautob
@tjaartvdwalt
Yuli Khodorkovskiy
@ZeiP