Conky HUD

Conky is a highly flexible system monitor that usually resides on your desktop. It is covered up when another window is open, especially in a tiling window manager. However, thanks to the power of awesome, we can turn Conky into a heads-up display (HUD) of sorts. Pressing a key would cause Conky to raise itself above all other windows (see screenshot).

It is also possible to turn Conky into a wibox that is not overlapped by windows in the first place, as described in Conky bar.

Awesome
Add the following functions into rc.lua: function get_conky local clients = client.get local conky = nil local i = 1 while clients[i] do       if clients[i].class == "Conky" then conky = clients[i] end i = i + 1 end return conky end function raise_conky local conky = get_conky if conky then conky.ontop = true end end function lower_conky local conky = get_conky if conky then conky.ontop = false end end function toggle_conky local conky = get_conky if conky then if conky.ontop then conky.ontop = false else conky.ontop = true end end end

Then place the following into the awful.rules table, unless you're using another client-matching system like Shifty or Tyrannical: { rule = { class = "Conky" }, properties = { floating = true, sticky = true, ontop = false, focusable = false, size_hints = {"program_position", "program_size"} } }

Then assign the keybindings. For a "press and hold" system in which Conky will raise itself as long as a key is held down, use: awful.key({}, "F10", function raise_conky end, function lower_conky end) Or for a toggle key, use: awful.key({}, "Pause", function toggle_conky end)

Conky
Make sure the following lines are in your .conkyrc: own_window yes own_window_type desktop own_window_hints below,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

If this doesn't work use this: own_window yes own_window_type normal own_window_hints below,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

You will probably want a translucent background (compositing manager required), so use something like: own_window_colour 000000 own_window_argb_visual yes own_window_argb_value 110