qforceupdate - update a widget on your bar through shell command

qforceupdate

#!/bin/env bash

# Usage:
#   qforceupdate
#   qforceupdate checkupdates

if [ "${#}" == 0 ]
then
    # requires ln -s ~/.cache/qtile/qtilesocket.\:0 ~/.cache/qtile/qtilesocket.\:0.0
    qtile cmd-obj -o cmd -f list_widgets \
        | sed "s/^\[//" \
        | sed "s/\]$//" \
        | sed "s/^ *'//" \
        | sed "s/',*$//"
else
    for widget_name in "${@}"
    do
        qtile cmd-obj -o widget "${widget_name}" -f force_update
    done
fi

This is for the widgets in the Qtile bar. The bash script can update specific widgets without reloading Qtile or the entire config file.

Note: If you get any "ipc" related error, then try the command ln -s ~/.cache/qtile/qtilesocket.\:0 ~/.cache/qtile/qtilesocket.\:0.0 to create a symlink. For some reason Qtile expects a filename with .0 at the end.

qtile cmd-obj -o cmd -f list_widgets |sed 's/[^[:alnum:]_]\+//g'

this is much simplier

#!/usr/bin/env bash

widgets=($(qtile cmd-obj -o cmd -f list_widgets |sed 's/[^[:alnum:]_]\+//g'))
for index in "${!widgets[@]}"
do
    printf "%d:%s " "$(($index+1))" "${widgets[$index]}"
done
printf "\n"
read -n 2 -p "Select widget: " index
widget="$((index-1))"
max=$((${#widgets[@]}-1))
case $widget in
    [1-$max])
        printf "%s\n" "Updating ${widgets[$widget]}"
        qtile cmd-obj -o widget ${widgets[$widget]} -f force_update
        ;;
    "-1")
        printf "%s\n" "Updating all widgets"�
        for index in "${!widgets[@]}"
        do
            qtile cmd-obj -o widget ${widgets[$index]} -f force_update
        done
        ;;
    *)
        echo "Invalid selection"
        ;;
esac

Add some interaction

Hi @poslat-pismo , good to see alternatives! Unfortunately I stopped using Qtile (shame on me, but plan on returning) and cannot test your commands at the moment. Your first command which simplifies it into a single sed makes sense. The second script is probably useful to test right away if a certain widget name is the correct one, before using the widget name in an automation script.

But its too specific for my taste. The listing command was added for exactly that, to be able to make menu scripts if someone wants to. I would probably use the widget listing command and combine it with a fuzzy finder, something like qforceupdate "$(qforceupdate | fzf)" (untested command!).