How to use

[Andrew-Sor]

Hello.
I did not understand how to launch and configure Winbar.
Can you explain this in detail?

[Sulaxan]

Hi Andrew - ensure you have winbar and its associated CLI installed. The easiest way is to get off the Releases page, but if you prefer compiling from source, see Compiling from source.

Adding to PATH

If you compiled from source, you can ignore the following.

You need to move the executables into a folder that's available in your PATH environment variable or make a new directory and add that into the PATH variable:

• I'm currently on a Windows 11 system, but I assume it'll be the same on Windows 10: in the Start menu, search "Edit the system environment variables" OR simply "path" and click the (typically) first option. This will open up Control Panel.
• Click the "Environment Variables..." button at the bottom of the window. This will open up another window showing you all of your set environment variables.
• Look for "Path" under System variables - then double click it (or click Edit at the bottom).
• Another window will open at this point - from here you can see a list of folders in your Path. You can choose to either move the executables into one of these folders (not recommended), or click "New" and add a new path. If you choose to do the latter, I'd recommend either making the folder under C:\Program Files\ or make a custom bin folder (e.g., C:\Users\<your name>\bin\).

At this point, you should be able to open up a terminal window (Command Prompt, Powershell, etc), and run the winbarc command. If a message with a bunch of commands shows up, then you setup your Path correctly.

Configuring

You need to generate the config for winbar; either download it from the repo (https://github.com/Sulaxan/winbar/blob/main/winbar.json), or you can generate it from the command line:

winbar --config-path <PATH> --generate-config

(Using winbar here, not winbarc)

A quick note: can be anything - if you put ./winbar.json it'll be your current directory. I recommend either putting it in C:\Users\<your name>\.config OR in the same directory as the executables above.

There currently isn't a standard config location in winbar as of right now, however, I plan to standardize this in the future. This will effectively eliminate you from passing in the --config-path option every time you run a command, assuming you have it in the standard location. Again, something for the future.

See the docs to see what you can change in the config file to configure winbar.

Running winbar

There are a couple of ways to run winbar, outlined in Usage. I'll note the method using winbarc below.

Run the following:

winbarc start --config-path <PATH>

Note that is the path to the config file (e.g., if it's in C:\Users\<your name>\.config, then you'd specify something along the lines of C:\Users\<your name>\.config\winbar.json [or whatever else you named the config file]).

This should start winbar in the background, use winbarc stop to stop the process.

A forewarning on winbar

Winbar is very much a work in progress; there are currently only 2 components you can use. I've started working on the next major feature for winbar (plugins) some months ago, but have not had time to get around to finishing it. Once this feature is implemented, a lot more components can be added with relatively easily.

With that being said, hopefully you see potential with this project - as always, let me know if you have any issues or questions.

[Andrew-Sor]

Ok. I ran winbarc start --config-path <PATH> but didn't see anything. I downloaded the config file from here: https://github.com/Sulaxan/winbar/blob/main/winbar.json

If I write the command winbarc show, then I get Sending show window payload... Error occurred in the winbar server connection: Подключение не установлено, т.к. конечный компьютер отверг запрос на подключение. (os error 10061)

[Sulaxan]

Ok. I ran winbarc start --config-path <PATH> but didn't see anything. I downloaded the config file from here: https://github.com/Sulaxan/winbar/blob/main/winbar.json

If I write the command winbarc show, then I get Sending show window payload... Error occurred in the winbar server connection: Подключение не установлено, т.к. конечный компьютер отверг запрос на подключение. (os error 10061)

If you didn't see any message after running winbarc start ..., it is likely that the process wasn't started (you should see Started winbar! if the process started successfully). Oddly though, you should have seen some sort of output after running this command; either a success message or an error. Has me curious if there's an edge case...

For now, try running the winbar executable directly:

winbar --config-path <PATH>

Let me know if this works and we'll start working through what the issue is. If the above does work, it could be an issue with winbarc.

[Andrew-Sor]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say I got Started winbar!

I meant that I didn't see any panels...

[Sulaxan]

Oh yeah, I forgot to say I got Started winbar!

I meant that I didn't see any panels...

Ah, makes sense. Have you had a chance to run the command I mentioned above?

[Andrew-Sor]

This winbar --config-path <PATH>? Yes. I got it

[Sulaxan]

This winbar --config-path <PATH>? Yes. I got it

Looks like this was an issue caused by me - I made some changes months ago that made some breaking changes to the config file, but never updated the config in the repo. I just updated the repo, so when you get a chance, if you could download the config file again (https://github.com/Sulaxan/winbar/blob/main/winbar.json) and try running winbar.

Namely, the following changes were made:

• Colors are now specified using the function syntax: "Transparent" => "Transparent()"
• No more null colors in the config

[Andrew-Sor]

Oh. Yes. I'll definitely try it tomorrow

[Andrew-Sor]

I had to enter 2 commands before I saw the panels. But now I get some endlessly repeating output

2024-11-16.143223.mp4

[Sulaxan]

I had to enter 2 commands before I saw the panels. But now I get some endlessly repeating output
2024-11-16.143223.mp4

Unfortunately, I can't view the video (corrupted?), but glad you got it working. What were the 2 commands you used?

Just to clarify, using winbar runs the status bar directly, so you'll see all the logging in your terminal. Try running the winbarc command that you originally tried (i.e., winbarc start --config-path <PATH>). This should hopefully start winbar in the background now. Let me know if you get it working.

[Andrew-Sor]

Unfortunately, I can't view the video (corrupted?)

Yes, it looks like it. Here I uploaded the video again

2024-11-16.143223.mp4

[Sulaxan]

Unfortunately, I can't view the video (corrupted?)

Yes, it looks like it. Here I uploaded the video again
2024-11-16.143223.mp4

Still unable to view it