glance-pokemon

A Glance widget that surfaces a random Pokémon with type-aware styling, stats, and species badges.

Overview • Quick Start • Widget Options • Widget Details • References

Normal	Legendary	Mythical

Artwork Popover	Name Popover

---

Overview

Widget	Purpose	Best Fit	File
Random Pokemon	Show a random Pokemon with official artwork, type chips, base stats, height, weight, optional legendary or mythical badges, a configurable display language, and a hover popover for localized species names	small	widgets/random-pokemon.yml

The widget is designed for a compact sidebar-style Glance placement and renders directly from public APIs without any additional backend or local service:

• native time-based pseudo-random Pokemon selection inside the Glance template
• Pokemon data and artwork from PokeAPI
• type-aware gradient accents around the artwork
• built-in fallbacks for Pokemon lookup errors and missing artwork

Data Flow

1. Glance derives a time-based pseudo-random Pokemon ID inside the template from the current day-of-year plus the current hour, minute, and second within the configured Pokédex range.
2. The widget loads the Pokemon record from https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon/<id>.
3. It loads the species record from https://pokeapi.co/api/v2/pokemon-species/<id>.
4. The template renders artwork, type colors, stats, physical attributes, optional Legendary or Mythical badges, the configured display language, and localized species names in a native Glance hover popover.

---

Quick Start

1. Copy widgets/random-pokemon.yml into your Glance widgets/ folder.
2. Include the widget in glance.yml.
3. Reload Glance.

No environment variables are required.

pages:
  - name: Fun
    columns:
      - size: small
        widgets:
          - $include: widgets/random-pokemon.yml
            options:
              language: en
              min-id: 1
              max-id: 151

Reference config: examples/glance.yml

---

Widget Options

Random Pokemon (widgets/random-pokemon.yml)

Option	Type	Default	Description
min-id	int	1	Lowest Pokedex number allowed for the random selection
max-id	int	1025	Highest Pokedex number allowed for the random selection
language	string	en	PokeAPI language code used for the visible Pokemon name, with automatic fallback to English if that translation is unavailable

Behavior notes:

• the widget clamps values to the supported national Pokedex range of 1-1025
• if min-id is greater than max-id, the widget swaps them automatically
• language expects a PokeAPI language identifier such as en, de, fr, ja, ja-Hrkt, ko, zh-Hans, or zh-Hant
• if the selected language is missing for a Pokemon species, the widget falls back to English automatically
• this makes Gen 1 only, Gen 1-4, or Gen 4 only setups possible without editing the template

Generation Ranges

Generation	Pokedex Range
Gen 1	1-151
Gen 2	152-251
Gen 3	252-386
Gen 4	387-493
Gen 5	494-649
Gen 6	650-721
Gen 7	722-809
Gen 8	810-905
Gen 9	906-1025

Example Ranges

Gen 1 only

- $include: widgets/random-pokemon.yml
  options:
    language: en
    min-id: 1
    max-id: 151

Gen 1-4

- $include: widgets/random-pokemon.yml
  options:
    language: en
    min-id: 1
    max-id: 493

Gen 4 only

- $include: widgets/random-pokemon.yml
  options:
    language: en
    min-id: 387
    max-id: 493

German display name

- $include: widgets/random-pokemon.yml
  options:
    language: de
    min-id: 1
    max-id: 1025

---

Widget Details

Random Pokemon (widgets/random-pokemon.yml)

- type: custom-api
  title: Random Pokemon
  cache: 5m
  options:
    language: en
    min-id: 1
    max-id: 1025
  template: |
    # Random ID lookup within the configured range, Pokemon data requests,
    # species lookup, and rendering are handled inside the template
    ...

Localized Name Popover

Hovering the visible Pokemon name opens a native Glance HTML popover.

• the popover header keeps the English species name and Pokédex number centered at the top
• the body lists localized species names in two columns: flag + localized language label on the left and the localized name on the right
• the visible card title follows options.language, while the popover remains a multilingual reference view
• unsupported or missing translations fall back to English for the visible card title

Artwork Popover

Hovering the artwork opens a separate native Glance HTML popover for visual details.

• the popover shows up to four sprite variants: official, official shiny, home, and home shiny
• compact cry chips let you play either the latest or legacy Pokemon cry directly from the artwork popover
• localized species metadata such as genus uses options.language, with English fallback when needed
• compact extra metadata includes generation, capture rate, gender distribution, and form count when applicable
• the Pokédex flavor text also follows options.language, with English fallback when that language has no matching entry

Behavior Notes

• the widget is tuned for a small Glance column
• each refresh derives a new time-based pseudo-random Pokemon from the current day-of-year plus the current hour, minute, and second, then caches the result for 5m
• the selection range can be limited with min-id and max-id
• the selection is deterministic for a given point in time, so repeats can happen more often than with a true random source
• the visible Pokemon name follows options.language, defaulting to English
• hovering the Pokemon name opens a native Glance popover with the English species name and Pokédex number centered at the top, then flags plus localized language labels on the left and localized names on the right
• hovering the artwork opens a second popover with alternate sprite versions and a localized Pokédex entry
• the artwork circle, divider accents, and artwork shadow adapt to the Pokemon type palette
• dual-type Pokemon blend primary and secondary type colors in the accent treatment
• species data adds Legendary and Mythical badges when available
• official artwork falls back to the default sprite if the high-resolution image is missing
• if one of the public APIs is unavailable, the widget renders a clear error state instead of a broken card

---

References

• Dashboard platform: glanceapp/glance
  Widget implementation targets Glance custom-api behavior and config style.

• Pokemon data: PokeAPI
  Pokemon details, artwork references, species metadata, and type information.

• Original widget inspiration: KintsugiUwU on Discord (kintsugiuwu)
  Credit for the original random Pokemon widget concept this version was built from.

---

Disclaimer

This widget was developed with support from OpenAI Codex and a custom glance-skill.

---

MIT License © 2026