Using btop as a status indicator command

[godalming123]

I can understand why this might be out-of-scope for this project, but let me make an argument for being able to use btop to print the status of a system, for example the command:

btop status\
    --update-15s\
    --if-battery-greater-then-30=🔋\
    --else=🪫\
    --if-battery="{$BATTERY_CHARGE}% "\
    --if-temp="🌡️{#TEMP} "\
    --if-ram="💿{#RAM_USAGE_GB} {#RAM_USAGE_PERCENTAGE}% "\
    --main="📅{#DAY}/{#MONTH}/{#YEAR}"

Would output the following to stdout:

🌡️40 💿1.8Gi 13% 📅16/03/24 ⌚10:34
🌡️40 💿1.9Gi 14% 📅16/03/24 ⌚10:34
🌡️40 💿1.8Gi 13% 📅16/03/24 ⌚10:34
🌡️40 💿1.8Gi 13% 📅16/03/24 ⌚10:35

This could be useful for a bar program like poly-bar or eww. Note that the --update-15s option makes the command not exit, and instead reprint the status every 15 seconds on a newline for something like swaybar.

My arguments are as follows:

• This command would work on every system. It doesn't matter which OS is being used; windows, linux, freeBSD, or mac - they could all work perfectly with a simple command. This allows for example a neovim setup that works well on every OS.

• This is one command, and not a complex, unreliable script. My current script to update my swaybar is as follows:

  status_command while echo "\
  $(test -d /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/ && (echo \
  $([ $(cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity) -gt 30 ] && echo 🔋 || echo 🪫)\
  $(cat /sys/class/power_supply/BAT0/capacity)%\
  ))\
  🌡️$(cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp | awk '{print ($1/1000)}') \
  💿$(free -h | grep Mem: | awk '{print ($3, int($3/$2*100))}')% \
  📅$(date +'%d/%m/%y') \
  ⌚$(date +'%I:%M')\
  "; do sleep 60; done
  

  This script is much harder to understand, and also much less reliable:

  • Whenever I start sway, the ram usage % reports as over 100%, and I have to wait for the bar to refresh
  • Since a kernel update, the tempreature no longer works with the error cat: /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone0/temp: No data available (the temperature works fine on btop).
  • I know that sometimes the main battery isn't BAT0, and this script just wouldn't work with this script

  I'm sure that these issues are easy to fix, but btop just works ® much more reliably then this script.

Just an idea