Introduction#

Loading#

FrostBar will look for a configuration file at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/frostbar/config.kdl. If no configuration file exists, a new one will be created with the contents of the default configuration file.

The config file is live-reloaded. Whenever the file is saved, changes will automatically be applied. If the config file fails to parse, a notification will be sent.

Syntax#

The config is written in KDL v1 (pronounced "cuddle").

(Neo)Vim and Helix come with KDL syntax highlighting by default. VSCode users can install the KDL v1 Extension.

Comments#

Lines starting with // are comments; they are ignored.

Sections starting with /- are commented out; Everything in that section is ignored.

/-time {
    // Everything inside here is ignored.
    format "%H\n%M"
}

Colors#

Colors can be specified as hex literals in the form of #rrggbb, #rrggbbaa, #rgb, or #rgba and are case-insensitive.

Example:

background "#73F5AB"

Colors File#

In addition to specifying hex codes directly in the main config file, there is also the option to source colors from a separate file, located at colors.kdl in the same directory as the main config.kdl file. This could be useful to change colors dynamically based on your wallpaper, for example.

The format of this file is a list of color names and hex codes.

Example:

color1 "#f00"
color2 "#858585"

Then, in the min config.kdl file, you can use one of the defined color names prefixed with a $ instead of a hex code.

Example:

background: "$color1"

If a color name cannot be found in the colors.kdl file, it will default to red.

The ability to specift a config file with a command line argument is planned.