awesome.volume-control

Volume indicator+control widget for awesome window manager.

Installation

Simply drop the script into your awesome config folder, e.g.:

cd ~/.config/awesome
git clone https://github.com/deficient/volume-control.git

I recommend to also install the following:

pacman -S pavucontrol       # open volume manager with middle/right click
pacman -S acpid             # instant status updates (acpi_listen)
systemctl enable acpid

Usage

In your ~/.config/awesome/rc.lua:

-- load the widget code
local volume_control = require("volume-control")


-- define your volume control, using default settings:
volumecfg = volume_control({})


-- add the widget to your wibox
...
right_layout:add(volumecfg.widget)
...


-- add key bindings
local globalkeys = awful.util.table.join(
    ...
    awful.key({}, "XF86AudioRaiseVolume", function() volumecfg:up() end),
    awful.key({}, "XF86AudioLowerVolume", function() volumecfg:down() end),
    awful.key({}, "XF86AudioMute",        function() volumecfg:toggle() end),
    ...
)

Known issues

One common pitfall is using the wrong sound device. On systems with pulseaudio, it's usually best to create the control with:

volumecfg = volume_control {device="pulse"}

On some systems, clicking the widget will mute audio, however clicking it again will only unmute Master while leaving other subsystems (Speaker, …) muted, see e.g. #10. This may be fixed by setting the device to pulse, as described above.

For pre-2019 alsa-utils, if you have the listen enabled, unplugging USB headphones sometimes causes the process that monitors for audio status changes (alsactl monitor) to spin at 100% CPU, see #11. When this happens, you can safely kill the process or restart awesome (Mod4 + Control + R). This bug was fixed in alsa-utils 1.1.7.

Constructor

You can specify any subset of the following arguments to the constructor. The default values are as follows:

volumecfg = volume_control({
  device  = nil,            -- e.g.: "default", "pulse"
  cardid  = nil,            -- e.g.: 0, 1, ...
  channel = "Master",
  step    = '5%',           -- step size for up/down
  lclick  = "toggle",       -- mouse actions described below
  mclick  = "pavucontrol",
  rclick  = "pavucontrol",
  listen  = false,          -- enable/disable listening for audio status changes
  widget  = nil,            -- use this instead of creating a awful.widget.textbox
  font    = nil,            -- font used for the widget's text
  callback = nil,           -- called to update the widget: `callback(self, state)`
  widget_text = {
    on  = '% 3d%% ',        -- three digits, fill with leading spaces
    off = '% 3dM ',
  },
  tooltip_text = [[
Volume: ${volume}% ${state}
Channel: ${channel}
Device: ${device}
Card: ${card}]],
})

Mouse actions

The easiest way to customize what happens on left/right/middle click is to specify additional arguments to the constructor. These can be of any of the following kinds:

• name of a member function: "up", "down", "toggle", "mute", "get"
• command string to execute
• a callable that will be called with the volume control as first parameter

E.g.:

volumecfg = volume_control({
  lclick="toggle",                        -- name of member function
  mclick=TERMINAL .. " -x alsamixer",     -- command to execute
  rclick=function(self) self:mute() end,  -- callable, equivalent to "mute"
})

Icon widget

You can use the module as a basis to implement your own volume widget. For example, an icon widget can be created as follows:

local function get_image(volume, state)
    local icondir = os.getenv("HOME") .. "/.local/share/icons/"
    if volume == 0 or state == "off"  then return icondir .. "audio_mute.png"
    elseif volume <= 33               then return icondir .. "audio_low.png"
    elseif volume <= 66               then return icondir .. "audio_med.png"
    else                                   return icondir .. "audio_high.png"
    end
end

local volume_widget = volume_control {
    tooltip = true,
    widget = wibox.widget.imagebox(),
    callback = function(self, setting)
        self.widget:set_image(
            get_image(setting.volume, setting.state))
    end,
}

However, in this case, I recommend to use pasystray instead.

Requirements

• awesome 4.0.
• pavucontrol (optional)
• acpid (optional)

You will also need amixer and alsactl, most likely your distro has a package called alsa-utils that contains them.

If you are using pipewire, you have to configure it to manage clients using the userspace component of ALSA. For example on Arch Linux, this can be done by installing the package pipewire-alsa. For Debian, you can follow the instructions provided in the Debian Wiki.

Similarly, if you are using pulseaudio, you need to configure it to manage clients using the userspace component of ALSA. For Arch Linux, that means installing the package pulseaudio-alsa.

Alternatives

If you like a volume control with an icon instead of text, I suggest to use pasystray, which is a more comprehensive solution and built for the systray (not awesome widget) with a much nicer menu.