5.6 KiB
Ported widgets
The GTK widgets that used to run as a separate AGS process are now plugins
inside the shell. A panel opens over IPC into a process that is already running
rather than starting a second toolkit, and ags is no longer installed or
autostarted.
Where each one went
| Was | Is | Note |
|---|---|---|
QuickSettings.tsx (523 lines) |
shell/plugins/panels/quick-settings/ |
split across 9 files, none over 250 lines |
SysMonitor.tsx (142) |
shell/plugins/panels/sysmon/ |
CPU, memory, disk, temperature |
Notifications.tsx (160) |
shell/plugins/notification-center/ |
reads the notification service's own history files |
WallPicker.tsx (106) |
the existing image picker | blob-wallpaper-set --menu now calls blob-menu-images, so wallpapers get the image grid instead of a text list |
ThemePicker.tsx (178) |
the menu and blob-theme-switcher |
the shell already had a theme switcher; a second picker was duplicate surface |
ClaudeUsage.tsx (372) |
dropped | it existed to read agent usage records, and the agents feature is gone |
Media.tsx (104) |
dropped | SHOW_DESKTOP_MEDIA was already false, and the quick settings media row covers it |
WidgetCard.tsx (22) |
Ui/Card.qml, Ui/CardHeader.qml, Ui/StatRow.qml |
shared, so no plugin repeats the card |
style.css (759) |
Commons/Style.qml tokens |
see below |
The look
ags/style.css was the visual identity worth keeping: square corners, a 2px
border, and an alpha(background, 0.6) fill. Those are now named tokens on
Style - cardBorderWidth, cardRadius, cardFillAlpha, cardBorderAlpha,
panelFillAlpha - so every ported panel reads the same numbers instead of
repeating literals.
The CSS was written against pywal's @color0, @color4 and @color5 aliases.
blob-theme-color resolves color4 to blue and color5 to magenta, so
Commons/Color.qml now exposes blue and magenta with that same cascade,
falling back to accent for themes that define neither. color0 is
background, which Color already had.
Opening them
| Panel | Opened by |
|---|---|
| Quick settings | left-click the bar clock, or Super + Ctrl + Q |
| Notification centre | left-click the bar bell |
| System monitor | Super + Ctrl + M |
Both new bar click actions are already in shell.json. The system monitor had no
bar entry point in the AGS setup either, so the keybinding is how it is reached.
Deliberately not ported
The tiles still poll shell commands the way the GTK widgets did - pamixer for
volume, brightnessctl for brightness, playerctl for media - rather than
binding to the shell's own audio, brightness and media services. Polling only
runs while a panel is open, so the cost is bounded, but wiring these to the
services is the obvious next refinement and would remove the last per-tick
process spawns.
Display layout
blob.display-layout arranges monitors. Opened with Super + Shift + Ctrl + D
or the Blob menu's Display layout row.
A scaled picture of the desktop, one draggable rectangle per monitor. Dropping one applies the new position immediately. Edges snap to a neighbour's edge within 60 logical pixels, so monitors end up touching exactly. Per-monitor controls: mode, scale, enable or disable, and mirror.
Scale options are filtered, not free. Hyprland steps fractional scaling in
1/120 and rejects a scale that does not land on a whole number of physical
pixels on both axes. DisplayModel.scaleIsValid applies that rule, so only
usable scales are offered. On a 1920x1080 panel that means 1.0 and 1.2 are
adjacent with nothing between them, which is the constraint hypr/monitors.lua
documents by hand.
Nothing is written to monitors.lua. Every change goes through
hyprctl keyword monitor and lasts until the config reloads or the session
ends. "Reset to monitors.lua" runs hyprctl reload and makes the checked-in
config authoritative again. To keep a layout, edit monitors.lua yourself -
blob display arrange list prints the current layout in the exact keyword form,
ready to copy.
Rotation and primary-monitor selection are not implemented. DisplayModel reads
transform and round-trips it, so a rotated monitor is drawn and preserved
correctly, but nothing in the widget sets it.
Wallpapers
blob.displays picks wallpapers. Opened with Super + Alt + W or the Blob
menu's Wallpaper row.
A thumbnail grid of ~/wallpapers, with a row of chips selecting the target:
"All monitors" sets the global wallpaper through blob-bg-set, and a specific
output assigns just that monitor through blob-bg-monitor, which symlinks the
image under ~/.local/state/blob/backgrounds/<output>. An output with its own
wallpaper is marked with an asterisk.
blob.background already drew one window per screen but pointed them all at the
same image. It now resolves per screen: a monitor with an assignment shows it,
and a monitor without one shows the global wallpaper. The crossfade machinery
stays on the global path only, so an assigned monitor swaps without the reveal
animation rather than risking that code.
| Command | Does |
|---|---|
blob bg set <image> |
set the global wallpaper |
blob bg monitor <output> <image> |
assign a wallpaper to one monitor |
blob bg monitor <output> --clear |
fall back to the global wallpaper |
blob bg monitor --list |
show assignments |
blob display arrange list |
print the layout as monitor keywords |
blob display arrange apply <kw> |
apply a keyword now |
blob display arrange reset |
reload, restoring monitors.lua |
Both widgets share Ui/Chip.qml, Ui/Card.qml and Ui/CardIconButton.qml
rather than carrying their own copies.