vibar

A minimal configurable Wayland taskbar using Rust + GTK4 + gtk4-layer-shell.

Previews

Example bar

playerctl integration

pulseaudio integration

Getting Started

Install OS dependencies and Rust toolchain:

make deps

Note: make deps currently supports Arch-based and Fedora/RHEL-based distros only.

Generate a lockfile (commit it):

make lock

Build And Run

make build
make run

Install system-wide:

make build-release
make install

Notes:

• make build-release compiles as your current user (so cargo caches are reused).
• make install only copies target/release/vibar into install location.
• Installs binary to /usr/local/bin/vibar by default (PREFIX/BINDIR override supported).

Verification

Run individual checks:

make check
make fmt
make lint
make test

Run CI-equivalent checks:

make ci

Dependency Automation

• Dependabot checks Rust (cargo) and GitHub Actions dependencies weekly.
• GTK stack updates (gtk4, gtk4-layer-shell) are grouped into a single Dependabot PR.
• Dependabot PRs are configured to auto-merge when repository checks pass.

Documentation

• Module configuration and styling selectors: docs/modules.md
• Developer architecture and extension notes: docs/developer.md
• Default example config: config.jsonc
• Base stylesheet loaded by default: style.css

Features

• Bottom-anchored layer-shell bar
• One bar window per connected monitor, with hotplug add/remove sync
• Configurable horizontal layout with left, center, right areas
• Module types: sway/workspaces, sway/mode, sway/window, clock, cpu, memory, disk, temperature, backlight, battery, playerctl, pulseaudio, tray, exec, group — see docs/modules.md for full config/behavior/styling reference
• Config file search order: ~/.config/vibar/config.jsonc, then embedded fallback
• CSS layering: embedded default style.css + optional user CSS overlay (disable default via style.load-default)

Preview bar config

Here's the configuration used for the example preview bar above:

my personal `config.jsonc`

{
"style": {
  "load-default": true,
  "path": "~/.config/vibar/style.css",
},
"areas": {
  "left": [
    { "type": "sway/workspaces" },
    { "type": "sway/mode", "format": "<span style=\"italic\">{}</span>" },
    { "type": "sway/window" },
  ],
  "center": [],
  "right": [
    {
      "type": "temperature",
      "class": "v-square",
      "warning-threshold": 65,
      "format": "",
      "format-warning": "{temperatureC}°C {icon}",
      "format-critical": "{temperatureC}°C {icon}",
      "format-icons": [""],
    },
    {
      "type": "cpu",
      "class": "v-square",
      "format": "{used_percentage}% ",
      "interval_secs": 1,
    },
    {
      "type": "memory",
      "class": "v-square",
      "format": "{used_percentage}% \uf2db",
    },
    {
      "type": "disk",
      "class": "v-square",
      "format": "{free} \uf0a0 ",
      "click": "xdg-open $HOME",
    },
    {
      "type": "exec",
      "class": "finalmouse v-square",
      "command": "cat ~/.cache/finalmouse/battery",
      "interval_secs": 10,
    },
    {
      "type": "playerctl",
      "format": "{status_icon}  {artist} - {title}",
      "max-width": 30,
      "controls": {
        "enabled": true,
        "open": "left-click",
        "show_seek": true,
      },
      "marquee": "open",
      "class": "v-square",
      "hide-when-idle": true, // false is default
      // "show-when-paused": false, // true is default
    },
    {
      "type": "pulseaudio",
      "right-click": "pavucontrol",
      "controls": {
        "enabled": true,
        "open": "left-click",
      },
      "class": "v-square",
    },
    {
      "type": "group",
      "drawer": true,
      "modules": [
        { "type": "tray", "icon_size": 16, "poll_interval_secs": 2 },
      ],
    },
    { "type": "clock", "time-format": "%a %d. %b %H:%M:%S" },
    {
      "type": "exec",
      "command": "~/.config/waybar/updates.py",
      "on-click": "alacritty -e yay --noconfirm && ~/.config/waybar/updates.py --force && pkill -RTMIN+8 vibar",
      "class": "updates v-square",
      "signal": 8,
      "interval_secs": 30,
    },
    {
      "type": "group",
      "drawer": {
        "label-closed": "",
        "label-open": "",
        "start-open": false,
      },
      "modules": [
        {
          "type": "exec",
          "command": "printf '⏻ Poweroff'",
          "on-click": "systemctl poweroff",
        },
        {
          "type": "exec",
          "command": "printf ' Restart'",
          "on-click": "systemctl reboot",
        },
        {
          "type": "exec",
          "command": "printf ' Sleep'",
          "on-click": "systemctl suspend",
        },
        {
          "type": "exec",
          "command": "printf ' Lock'",
          "on-click": "loginctl lock-session",
        },
      ],
    },
  ],
},
}

my personal `style.css`

* {
  font-family:
    FontAwesome,
    JetBrainsMono Nerd Font,
    Arial,
    sans-serif;
  font-size: 1rem;
}

.finalmouse.critical {
  background-color: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.5); /* Red - Critical */
}
.finalmouse.low {
  background-color: rgba(255, 165, 0, 0.5); /* Orange - Low */
}
.finalmouse.medium {
  background-color: rgba(255, 215, 0, 0.5); /* Gold/Yellow - Medium */
}
.finalmouse.high {
  background-color: rgba(144, 238, 144, 0.5); /* Light Green - High */
}
.finalmouse.full {
  background-color: rgba(0, 128, 0, 0.5); /* Green - Full */
}

.updates {
  background-color: rgba(176, 176, 0, 0.2);
  box-shadow: inset 0 -3px yellow;
}

.updates:hover {
  background-color: rgba(176, 176, 0, 0.5);
}

.updates.critical {
  background-color: rgba(176, 0, 0, 0.2);
  box-shadow: inset 0 -3px red;
}

.updates.critical:hover {
  background-color: rgba(176, 0, 0, 0.5);
}

Troubleshooting

• If text updates leave tiny font/glyph dots, it may help to set an explicit line-height on the affected module class (for example line-height: 1.5;).

Acknowledgements

• Waybar for long-running status bar design ideas and overall behavior references that influenced this project.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.