# waybar-theme-udt

A waybar bar for DP-3, themed by [unified-desktop-theme][udt] and drawn with
icons from the desktop's own icon theme rather than font glyphs.

[udt]: ../unified-desktop-theme

## Goal

Three things at once:

- **No font glyphs.** Every module that shows a symbol shows a real icon from
  `Material-Black-Plum-Suru`, the theme GTK already uses. Icons keep their own
  colours, because that is what every other application on this desktop shows.
- **Colours from udt.** Pill backgrounds, text and states resolve from
  `palette/roles-<scheme>.conf`, so switching scheme recolours this bar with
  everything else.
- **Pill clusters with transitions.** The grouped-capsule layout of `idea1.png`
  with the hover and state transitions of `idea2.png`.

The current bar on DP-1 is untouched. This one installs alongside it and is
pointed at DP-3.

## Layout

    DP-3  [📅 Wed 15/09] [🕑 14:32] [●]      [●] [✉ 9] [🔊] [tray] [⏻] [🇮🇹]
           date           time       vm      priv mail  vol  tray present lang

    DP-1  [1..8]                 [S]                      [ open windows ]
           workspaces         launcher                      taskbar

DP-3 is rotated, so a bar there is only 1080px wide. One bar holding every
module was too crowded at that width, so status stays on DP-3 alone and the
desktop itself, the workspaces and the window list, moved to DP-1 where there
are 2560px to spread them across. Both are one waybar process reading one
stylesheet: waybar takes a top-level array of bars.

This replaces the stock bar rather than sitting beside it. Hyprland starts it
from `~/.config/hypr/sections/autostart.lua`, which used to launch a bare
`waybar`; `~/.config/waybar/` is left on disk but nothing reads it.

Each bracket is one pill. Neighbouring pills in a cluster share a background
and weld together with asymmetric corner radii; clusters are separated by
transparent gaps, so the bar reads as groups rather than a continuous strip.

### Modules

| Position | Module | Icon source | Notes |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| DP-1 centre | `image#launcher` | `slackware.svg`, shipped here | Accent background, the one always-coloured pill. Opens the quickshell drawer. An `image` module: a `custom` one draws nothing when its format is empty, and the format has to be empty because the mark is an icon. |
| left | `clock#date` | `x-office-calendar` | Icon then text. Calendar tooltip kept. |
| left | `clock#time` | `clock` | Icon then text. |
| left | `hyprland/workspaces` | eight themed icons, via CSS | See below. |
| left | `custom/vmdot` | coloured dots | Dots keep their shape; colours move to roles. |
| center | `wlr/taskbar` | `icon-theme` config key | Per-window application icons. |
| right | `group/wireplumber` | `image` module | Drawer group kept as it is today. |
| right | `tray` | application-provided | |
| right | `custom/mail` | CSS, plus the count as text | Unread mail, the same notmuch watcher the stock bar ran. The envelope is a CSS background; the count stays text, because it is content rather than decoration, exactly like the clock. |
| right | `custom/presentation` | CSS, keyed on the module's class | Presentation mode, the same `statusctl`-backed module the stock bar ran. It already emits an empty text and a state class, so the icon is chosen in CSS and the glyphs are simply dropped. |
| right | `image#lang` | `flag-it.svg` / `burger.svg`, shipped here | An `image` module: `hyprland/language` styles as `#language` only, with no per-language class, so the image cannot be selected in CSS. English gets the hamburger the stock bar showed, not a flag. |

Dropped from the current bar: `custom/breaktimer`, `custom/mail`,
`custom/privacy_dots` stays only if you want it on this bar too (it is
currently listed; say if it should follow the others out). No battery, no
temperature, no cpu, no memory, no backlight: this is a desktop.

Clock is the one module that stays text. An icon cannot say 14:32; the icon
sits before the text, which is what makes it match the rest.

### Workspace icons

| WS | Icon | Was |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | `web-browser` | browser glyph |
| 2 | `utilities-terminal` | terminal glyph |
| 3 | `text-editor` | code glyph |
| 4 | `network-server` | matches the quickshell drawer's VM tile (`U+F233`, Font Awesome `server`) |
| 5 | `document-edit` | pen on a document: the alternate text editor lives here |
| 6 | `applications-graphics` | graphics glyph |
| 7 | `internet-chat` | chat glyph |
| 8 | `input-gaming` | joypad: games and media players |

All eight resolve in `Material-Black-Plum-Suru` today.

## How icons reach the bar

Three mechanisms, because waybar offers three and no single one covers
everything. This is the part worth reading before changing anything.

**1. Native `icon-theme` (taskbar, tray).** `wlr/taskbar` takes `icon-theme`
and `icon-size` outright. Today it asks for `Papirus`, **which is not
installed**, so GTK has been silently falling back. Pointing it at
`Material-Black-Plum-Suru` is a bug fix, not a preference.

**2. The `image` module (volume, presentation mode).** `image` runs `exec` and
expects `$path\n$tooltip` on stdout, so a small script maps state to an icon
name, resolves it through the GTK icon theme, and prints the path. One `image`
module is one icon, so a five-state volume indicator is one module plus one
script, not five modules.

**3. CSS `background-image` (workspaces).** Workspace buttons come from a
single `hyprland/workspaces` module and `format-icons` takes text, not paths.
Faking the strip with eight `custom` modules would lose click-to-switch and
the active/urgent states, so instead the real module keeps its behaviour, its
labels are emptied, and each button gets an icon through
`#workspaces button:nth-child(n) { background-image: url(...) }`.

The consequence, stated plainly: **the eight workspace icon paths live in the
stylesheet, not in the config.** Changing a workspace icon means editing CSS.

### Why the icons cannot follow the accent

2466 of the 5169 panel icons in `Material-Black-Plum-Suru` carry a hardcoded
`oomox` gradient (`#a08fbf` to `#5a33a3`) and seven further named gradients
each. They are not monochrome and not recolourable by CSS `color`. So icons
show their own colours and do not track the scheme, which is the intended
behaviour here: they match every other application on the desktop.

The two icons this repo ships are the exception. `slackware.svg` (from
Simple Icons) and the two flags are single-path monochrome, so `slackware.svg`
is tinted by a one-line `fill` substitution at install time. It takes the
bar's background colour, not the accent: it sits on the accent pill, and
filling it with the accent puts it on top of itself. The flags keep their
national colours.

## Repository layout

Modular, one file per module, mirroring the current setup:

    config.jsonc              entry point, `include`s every module file
    modules/
      clock.jsonc             clock#date and clock#time
      hyprland/
        workspaces.jsonc
        language.jsonc
      custom/
        launcher.jsonc
        vmdot.jsonc
      extras/
        taskbar.jsonc
        tray.jsonc
        wireplumber.jsonc
      image/
        language.jsonc        the keyboard flag, via `image`
    styles/
      style.css               entry point, imports the rest in order
      theme.css               GENERATED by udt-palette, gitignored
      fonts.css
      global.css              #waybar, tooltip, button base rules
      pills.css               the cluster geometry and transitions
      modules.css             per-module rules, including workspace icons
    icons/
      slackware.svg           carries @ACCENT@, substituted on install
      flag-it.svg
      burger.svg
    bin/
      wb-icon                 state to icon path, for the `image` modules
      vms_dots.sh             moved here from ~/bin, symlinked back
      privacy_dots.sh         moved here from ~/bin, symlinked back
    install.sh
    LICENSE
    README.md

Wildcard `include` is broken in waybar 0.14, so `config.jsonc` lists every
module file explicitly. That is a waybar limitation, not a choice.

## Palette integration

This repo is a **consumer** of udt: it holds the bar, udt holds the colours.

`styles/theme.css` is generated by `udt-palette` and gitignored, exactly like
every other generated file in that repo. udt's `install.sh` writes it straight
into `~/.config/waybar-udt/styles/theme.css` under a fixed name this bar
imports, so switching scheme rewrites the file the running bar already reads.

**The `[waybar]` role block has no per-module colours.** This was planned as a
rename, and turned out to be a deletion. The stock bar alternated module
backgrounds so it read as stripes, and carried a role for each: `workspaces`,
`temperature`, `memory`, `cpu`, `time`, `date`, `tray`, `volume`, `backlight`,
`battery`, plus `charging`. This bar draws every pill on `@main-bg`, and its
stylesheets reference seven names in total:

    @accent  @main-bg  @main-fg  @hover-bg  @hover-fg  @outline  @critical

So all eleven module roles had no consumer, and adding `launcher`, `mail` or
`present` roles would have invented more of the same. They are gone from all
nine `roles-*.conf` and from `gen_waybar`. Re-adding one means a stylesheet
that actually references it.

**Dot colours do not come from `[state]`.** `gen_waybar` never emitted
`success` or `info`, so `install.sh` reads `green`, `teal`, `mauve`,
`overlay0`, `warning` and `critical` back out of the generated stylesheet and
writes `~/.config/waybar-udt/dots.colors` for the two scripts to source. They
are bash and cannot read `@define-color`; both fall back to Macchiato values
when that file is missing, so they still run standalone.

## Install

`install.sh` follows udt's conventions: symlink what this repo owns
canonically, copy what another application owns, guard every reload.

- Module and style files are **symlinked** into `~/.config/waybar-udt/`, so the
  repo cannot drift from what is installed.
- `icons/slackware.svg` is **generated** into place with `@ACCENT@` substituted,
  the same way udt generates `launcher.rasi`.
- `bin/vms_dots.sh` and `bin/privacy_dots.sh` are symlinked to `~/bin/`,
  replacing the copies that live there now. **The originals are backed up
  first**: they are the only copy and are not currently in any repository.
- The bar is **not** started and `~/.config/waybar` is **not** touched. Running
  it is one command, printed at the end, so DP-1's bar keeps working until you
  choose otherwise.

Reload is `killall -SIGUSR2 waybar`, and `reload_style_on_change` is already on.

## Verification

Per udt's own rule, visual claims are measured, not reasoned about:

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

`wb-icon` gets one runnable self-check: every icon name the bar asks for must
resolve in the icon theme, so a missing icon fails loudly at install time
rather than rendering as a blank pill.

## Open questions

1. `custom/privacy_dots` is in the keep list but was not in the ten modules you
   named. On this bar or not?
2. Licence: GPLv2-only unless you say otherwise.