The bar

Three styles, one layout. Pieces are dragged out of a catalogue onto a picture of the bar, then drawn grouped round the island, spread to the edges, or all inside one capsule. Changing the style keeps what is on the bar.

Grouped, spread and one island — the same layout each time.

Styles

Chosen under Settings → Bar & Island → The island → Style.

Style	How it is drawn
Grouped	The workspaces, the island and the modules together in the middle. The default. A detail opening pushes the sides out.
Spread	The workspaces at one edge, the modules at the other, the island between them. The sides hold still.
One island	Everything inside a single capsule. Whatever the island becomes, the whole band changes shape into it.

In One island, Span the whole screen runs the band the full width of the bar instead of fitting what is on it. Island sets whether the island floats below the top edge or is cut into it as a notch, in every style.

What goes on it

• Modules — each a piece that shows a reading and opens a detail in the island when clicked. The same click closes it.
• The workspace strip — a dot per workspace; a click goes there.
• Buttons — Search, Overview, Control centre and Session, each opening that panel. The button stays lit while its panel is open.
• Split — ends one capsule and starts the next.

Neighbouring modules share a capsule; the workspace strip is always a capsule of its own. A capsule holding one piece takes that piece’s shape: a ring is a circle, a button a circle, a symbol and its figure a pill.

Out of the box the left side holds the workspaces, and the right holds Notifications, Network, Bluetooth, Volume and Battery.

A module the machine cannot show — no battery, no backlight, no Bluetooth adapter, no screen recorder — is not drawn, even when placed. Nothing on the bar moves by itself: a piece is where you put it.

Arranging

1. Open Settings (SUPER ,) → Bar & Island → The bar. Under Layout is a picture of the bar in its style, with the real time in the island, and the catalogue under it.

2. Drag a piece from the catalogue onto the picture. Let go over the left half and it goes left of the island; over the right half, right of it.

3. Drag a piece along the bar to move it, or off the bar to take it off.

4. Click a piece to pick it. A card under the bar has Remove, and the look of that piece alone.

The catalogue always holds every piece, and taking from it copies, so a piece can be on the bar twice. There is no on or off switch anywhere: on the bar is on.

How a piece reads

Two settings for the whole bar, under The bar → Chips:

Setting	Choices
Shape	Icon — the module’s symbol, small (the default). Ring — its gauge as a circle round the symbol: charge, volume, a countdown.
Figure	No — the symbol alone. On hover — the figure opens under the pointer. Always — always beside it (the default).

A module with nothing to measure — Calendar, Notifications — is its symbol in either shape.

Icon or ring, with its figure or without, for the whole bar.

Any piece can have a look of its own. Pick it on the picture, and its card offers Shape and Figure, each with Like the bar to follow the whole bar. Media, Timer and Recorder also have When: Always, or While it runs, to be on the bar only while something is playing, counting or recording.

Every module has a figure, so Always means all of them. Where there is nothing to count it is a word: Off, No devices, Muted, 0:00, REC, Egg, Nothing playing.

Warnings do not follow the palette. Off the charger, the battery turns yellow at 20% and red at 10%, and the System piece steps to the same hues at 70% and 90% processor load.

The module catalogue

Module	On the bar	Its detail in the island	Needs
Media	The track’s title, or Nothing playing	The player: artwork, title, artist, progress, previous, play or pause, next	A media player on the session bus (MPRIS)
Timer	A ring that drains, and the time left	Idle, set a countdown; running, hold, restart or stop it	—
Claude	Claude’s mark, and the session’s percentage — or its tokens, until the percentage is known	Tokens and messages for the five-hour session and the week, the account’s own percentages, and when the session resets	Claude Code (below)
Battery	The charge	The charge, charging or the time left, the power going in or out, and the energy stored	A battery
Volume	The level, or Muted	A slider, and mute buttons for the output and the microphone	—
Brightness	The level	A slider	A backlight
Network	The network’s name, or Off	The Wi-Fi list, the same as the control centre’s	—
Bluetooth	The connected device, a count, No devices or Off	The device list	A Bluetooth adapter
Notifications	A bell and how many are kept; crossed out in do not disturb	The history, with Clear	—
Weather	The conditions and the temperature	The place, feels-like, the reading’s age and the next hours	A network connection (below)
System	The processor load	Processor and memory, with their recent history	—
Updates	How many updates are waiting	What is waiting, when it was checked, and Open for the packages panel	pacman-contrib for a fresh count
Pet	The pet that is out, and its level or Egg	Feed, play, and the shelf of the whole family	—
Recorder	A muted camera and REC; a red dot and the time while recording	Record, the shape and the sound; while recording, what is taken, the sound, the file’s size, and stop	wl-screenrec or wf-recorder
Calendar	Its symbol and the day	The month, with a dot under each day that has tasks; such a day opens its list	—

• Claude appears once Claude Code has written its transcripts under ~/.claude/projects; the token and message counts are read from them. The percentages are the account’s own, the ones /usage shows: while the piece is on screen, every ten minutes the shell sends the smallest possible request to the API, signed in with Claude Code’s own credentials, and reads the answer’s headers. The token is never stored or printed.
• Weather comes from wttr.in, which guesses the place from your connection when none is set. Set it under Settings → Desktop → Module settings → Location: a city, a postcode or an airport code.
• Updates counts the repositories and the AUR, and never installs: Open goes to the packages panel, which runs the upgrade in a terminal. Without pacman-contrib the count is from the last sync.
• Recorder — see capture.
• System — the full panel, with cores, disks and temperatures, is SUPER U.

Not on the bar: Notes, Tasks, Games and GitHub are desktop widgets and panels of their own — see the desktop, notes and tasks and games and pets. GitHub needs a username under Settings → Desktop → Module settings → GitHub → Username. The clock is the island itself.

Size and workspaces

Under Settings → Bar & Island → The island → Scale: Bar height (24–48 px), Top margin (0–32 px) and Side margin (0–48 px). Everything on the bar scales with its height; as a notch, the island ignores the top margin.

Under Settings → Bar & Island → Workspaces: Workspaces shown are always drawn on the strip (five by default); the rest, up to Workspaces available (ten by default), appear only while they have windows.

Note

On a second screen the bar is the two sides and nothing between them, spread whatever the style. See the island.