Create a sideways wibar in awesome wm

Description

The wibar of the awesome window manager is extremely flexible and can do many things that are hard to do with other panels at best, that ususally end up being janky anyway, and sometimes just are not possible outright. One of these things is to move the panel to the side of the screen and have everything behave correctly. In the following, I am going to show you how you can create a panel attactched to the right side of each of your connected screens.

The code

#!/usr/bin/env lua5.3
local awful         = require("awful")
local wibox         = require("wibox")
local gears         = require("gears")
local hotkeys_popup = require("awful.hotkeys_popup")

-- Create a new wibar on the left of the screen.
-- s = the scrren (from `screen.connect_signal...`)
local function sideways_wibar(s)
	local swwb = {}

	if mylauncher then
		swwb.main_menu_button = mylauncher
	else
		swwb.main_menu_content = {
			{ "hotkeys", function() hotkeys_popup.show_help(nil, awful.screen.focused()) end },
			{ "manual", terminal .. " -e man awesome" },
			{ "edit config", editor_cmd .. " " .. awesome.conffile },
			{ "restart", awesome.restart },
			{ "quit", function() awesome.quit() end },
		}

		swwb.main_menu = awful.menu {
			items = {
				{ "awesome", swwb.main_menu, beautiful.awesome_icon },
				{ "open terminal", terminal or "xterm" }
			}
		}

		swwb.main_menu_launcher = awful.widget.launcher {
			image = beautiful.awesome_icon,
			menu = swwb.main_menu,
		}
	end

	swwb.taglist = awful.widget.taglist {
		screen  = s,
		filter  = awful.widget.taglist.filter.all,
		layout  = {
			layout  = wibox.layout.fixed.vertical
		},
		widget_template = {
			{
				{
					nil,
					{
						id     = "text_role",
						align  = "center",
						valign = "center",
						widget = wibox.widget.textbox,
					},
					nil,
					layout = wibox.layout.align.horizontal,
				},
				margins = 5,
				widget = wibox.container.margin,
			},
			id     = "background_role",
			widget = wibox.container.background,
		},
		buttons = {
			awful.button({ }, 1, function(t) t:view_only() end),
			awful.button({ modkey }, 1, function(t)
				if client.focus then
					client.focus:move_to_tag(t)
				end
			end),
			awful.button({ }, 3, awful.tag.viewtoggle),
			awful.button({ modkey }, 3, function(t)
				if client.focus then
					client.focus:toggle_tag(t)
				end
			end),
			awful.button({ }, 4, function(t) awful.tag.viewprev(t.screen) end),
			awful.button({ }, 5, function(t) awful.tag.viewnext(t.screen) end),
		}
	}

	swwb.layoutbox = awful.widget.layoutbox {
		screen  = s,
		buttons = {
			awful.button({ }, 1, function () awful.layout.inc( 1) end),
			awful.button({ }, 3, function () awful.layout.inc(-1) end),
			awful.button({ }, 4, function () awful.layout.inc(-1) end),
			awful.button({ }, 5, function () awful.layout.inc( 1) end),
		}
	}

	swwb.tasklist = awful.widget.tasklist {
		screen = s,
		filter = awful.widget.tasklist.filter.currenttags,
		layout = {
			layout  = wibox.layout.fixed.vertical
		},
		widget_template = {
			{
				id     = "icon_role",
				widget = wibox.widget.imagebox,
			},
			id     = "background_role",
			widget = wibox.container.background,
		},
		buttons = {
			awful.button({ }, 1, function (c)
				c:activate { context = "tasklist", action = "toggle_minimization" }
			end),
			awful.button({ }, 3, function() awful.menu.client_list { theme = { width = 250 } } end),
			awful.button({ }, 4, function() awful.client.focus.byidx(-1) end),
			awful.button({ }, 5, function() awful.client.focus.byidx( 1) end),
		}
	}

	swwb.clock = wibox.widget {
		nil,
		{
			format = "<b>%H:%M</b>",
			widget = wibox.widget.textclock,
		},
		nil,
		expand = "outside",
		layout = wibox.layout.align.horizontal,
	}

	swwb.systray = wibox.widget {
		horizontal = false,
		widget     = wibox.widget.systray,
	}

	swwb.wibar = awful.wibar {
		position = "left",
		screen = s,
		width = 42,
		widget = {
			{ -- Top
				swwb.main_menu_launcher,
				swwb.taglist,
				layout = wibox.layout.fixed.vertical,
			},
			{ -- Center
				swwb.tasklist,
				layout = wibox.layout.fixed.vertical,
			},
			{ -- Bottom
				swwb.systray,
				swwb.clock,
				swwb.layoutbox,
				layout = wibox.layout.fixed.vertical,
			},
			--expand = "outside",
			layout = wibox.layout.align.vertical,
		}
	}

	return swwb.wibar
end

return sideways_wibar

License

This document is released into the public domain under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0 license) license, while the code snippets within it are licensed under the unlicense. Both licenses can be considered public domain, as-is licenses (this is not legal advice; read the licenses).

Any questions left?

Just leave a comment, I'll try to help!

Tags / SEO / search engine optimization

These are some tags so that people looking for a solution will find this, rather than a dozen disconnected Reddit posts :)

awesome
awesome wm
awesome window manager
awesome wm sidebar
create sidebar awesome wm
move panel to side awesome
sideways panel awesome
awesome rotate panel

SkyyySi/sideways_wibar.md