# waybar-theme-udt

Two waybar bars for DP-3: pill clusters, icons from the desktop's own icon
theme instead of font glyphs, and colours driven by
[unified-desktop-theme](../unified-desktop-theme).

    DP-3  [📅 Wed 15/09] [🕑 14:32] [●]      [●] [✉ 9] [🔊] [tray] [⏻] [🇮🇹]
    DP-1  [1..8]                 [S]                      [ open windows ]

Each bracket is a pill. Pills group into clusters with gaps between them, so
the bars read as a few objects rather than one strip. Hover cross-fades
background and text over 0.3s; taskbar buttons underline in the accent.

DP-3 is rotated, so a bar there is only 1080px wide, which is why it carries
status alone. The desktop itself, the workspaces and the window list, sits on
DP-1 where there are 2560px to spread them across. Both bars are one waybar
process reading one stylesheet: waybar takes a top-level array of bars, so
they cannot drift apart.

This replaces the stock bar. Hyprland starts it from
`~/.config/hypr/sections/autostart.lua`; `~/.config/waybar/` is left on disk
but nothing reads it.

## Install

    ./install.sh

Installs to `~/.config/waybar-udt/` and prints the command to run it. **The
existing bar at `~/.config/waybar/` is left alone**, so DP-1 keeps working
while this one is tried on DP-3.

Needs `unified-desktop-theme` checked out next to this repo: the palette comes
from there, and `install.sh` fails clearly if it is missing.

## No glyphs

Every symbol on this bar is a real icon from `Material-Black-Plum-Suru`, the
theme GTK already uses. Icons keep their own colours, matching every other
application on the desktop.

waybar offers three ways to draw one, and this bar uses all three because no
single one covers everything:

| Mechanism | Used by | Why |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `icon-theme` config key | taskbar, tray | Native support, nothing else needed. |
| `image` module | volume, microphone, language | Takes a path from a script that resolves the current state. |
| CSS `background-image` | workspaces, clock, mail, presentation mode, launcher | `format-icons` takes text, not paths, and CSS can swap the image per state. |

The consequence worth knowing: **the workspace icons live in
`styles/modules.css`, not in the module config.** Changing one means editing
CSS. The alternative was eight `custom` modules faking a workspace strip,
which would have cost click-to-switch and the active and urgent states.

The language flag went the other way. `hyprland/language` styles as
`#language` and nothing else, with no per-language class, so the flag could
not be picked by a selector; it is an `image` module driven by `wb-lang`
instead.

`wb-icon --selftest` checks every icon name the bar asks for, CSS ones
included, and `install.sh` runs it. A missing icon renders as an empty pill
with nothing to say why, so it fails while someone is watching instead.

### Why the icons do not follow the accent

2466 of the 5169 panel icons in `Material-Black-Plum-Suru` carry a hardcoded
gradient and are not recolourable. That is intended here: icons match the rest
of the desktop rather than the bar.

The icons this repo ships are the exception, because the icon theme has none
of them. `icons/slackware.svg` (Simple Icons, CC0) is single-path monochrome,
so `install.sh` tints it from the palette, **twice**: the launcher pill
inverts on hover, so the mark has to invert with it, dark on the accent pill
at rest and light on the dark pill hovered. One mark would be invisible in one
of the two states, which is what shipped twice before this. Both tints are
generated from one source file, so they cannot drift apart in shape.

`icons/flag-it.svg` and `icons/burger.svg` (Twemoji, CC-BY 4.0) keep their own
colours. The hamburger stands in for the English layout, which is what the
stock bar showed: not a flag, and deliberately so.

## Layout

| Bar | Cluster | Modules |
| --- | --- | --- |
| DP-3 | left | date, time, VM dots |
| DP-3 | right | privacy dots, mail, volume drawer, tray, presentation mode, language |
| DP-1 | left | workspaces |
| DP-1 | centre | launcher |
| DP-1 | right | open windows |

No battery, temperature, CPU, memory or backlight: this is a desktop.

The clock is the only text on the bar. An icon cannot say 14:32, so the icon
sits before the text, which is what makes the pair match the icon-only pills
around it.

### Workspaces

| WS | Icon | |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | `web-browser` | 5 | `document-edit` |
| 2 | `utilities-terminal` | 6 | `applications-graphics` |
| 3 | `text-editor` | 7 | `internet-chat` |
| 4 | `network-server` | 8 | `input-gaming` |

Workspace 4 uses the same icon as the quickshell drawer's VM tile. Names are
generic, so the bar does not lie when the application on a workspace changes.

## Colours

This repo holds the bar; udt holds the palette. The palette reaches the bar as
three generated files, all written by this repo's `install.sh`:

| File | For |
| --- | --- |
| `styles/theme.css` | every `@name` the stylesheets reference |
| `dots.colors` | the two dot scripts, which are bash and cannot read `@define-color` |
| `slackware.svg`, `slackware-light.svg` | the launcher mark, tinted for each state |

All three are generated, so all three have to be rewritten when the scheme
changes. **`udt/install.sh` calls this script** to do that, rather than
copying the stylesheet itself: copying only `theme.css` recoloured the pills
and left the dots and the mark on the previous scheme.

So a scheme switch is still one command, `udt/install.sh`, and this script is
what you run after editing the bar. Running it directly regenerates the
palette first; called from udt it skips that, since udt has just done it.

The dot scripts fall back to Macchiato values when `dots.colors` is missing,
so they still run standalone.

## Layout of this repo

    config.jsonc          entry point; `include`s every module file
    modules/              one file per module, by source
    styles/               style.css imports the rest in order
    icons/                the two icons the icon theme lacks
    bin/                  wb-icon, wb-lang, and the two dot scripts

Wildcard `include` has been broken since waybar v0.14.0, so `config.jsonc`
lists every module file explicitly.

`bin/vms_dots.sh` and `bin/privacy_dots.sh` used to live only in `~/bin`, in no
repository. They are versioned here now and symlinked back; `install.sh` keeps
any real file it finds there as `.pre-udt` first.

## Reload

    killall -SIGUSR2 waybar

`reload_style_on_change` is on, so CSS edits apply by themselves.

Visual changes are measured, not reasoned about:

    grim -o DP-3 /tmp/shot.png

## License

GPLv2 only. See `LICENSE`.

## Development Approach

This project is developed using AI-assisted tools. Code is generated with the help of AI based on human-provided specifications, design decisions, and iterative feedback.

All contributions are reviewed, tested, and curated by the maintainer before being included in the codebase. AI is used as a productivity and exploration tool, while human oversight remains central to all decisions.

The goal is to combine the flexibility of AI-assisted development with standard open-source practices such as transparency, review, and accountability.