Is there a way to apply pango markup to workspace names in i3bar?

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1

Suppose I want to colorize my workspace names. But doing something like this doesn’t work:

set $ws1 "<span foreground=#AABBCC>sometext</span>"

i3bar won’t even render the text.

Workspace names are parsed as pango markup, according to i3’s documentation. So I must be doing something wrong. There are examples in the documentation that uses pango markups, but only through bindsym statements. Is there a way for us to apply the markup directly onto the workspace names?

2

As far as I know this set $ws1 is just giving it its name (label), not the graphical look.
To switch to the workspace you would have to press $mod + "<span foreground=#AABBCC>sometext</span>" key which is not possible in the first place (such key does not exists).
But according to an example in config set $ws2 2:.
Try set $ws1 1:<span\ foreground=#AABBCC>sometext</span> - I am not sure if the space has to be escaped with \ or not. Try it yourself. I use polybar so I do not have the i3bar active.

The colors are normally set in `bar {}` section. You can play with the colors in this online generator - [https://thomashunter.name/i3-configurator/](https://thomashunter.name/i3-configurator/) A example: ``` bar { colors { background #000000 statusline #FFFFFF separator #666666 #CHANGE THIS LAST COLUMN FOR TEXT COLOR focused_workspace #4C7899 #285577 #FFFFFF active_workspace #333333 #222222 #FFFFFF inactive_workspace #2F343A #222222 #868686 urgent_workspace #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF binding_mode #2F343A #900000 #FFFFFF } } ```

Just put the quotation mark to a correct postion around the color.
This should print red text.

set $ws4 4:<span color="#FF0000">aaa</span>

Oddly enough polybar removed 4: from the text above but i3bar does not.