The bar

Four 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, all inside one capsule, or on a bezel across the top edge. Changing the style keeps what is on the bar.

Styles

Chosen under Settings → Bar → Style → 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.
Bezel	One band across the whole top edge, cut into it. It never moves: whatever the island becomes drops out of its middle, with a curve either side.

Island, under Settings → Island → The island → Position, sets whether the island floats below the top edge or is cut into it as a notch. The bezel is always cut in.

Rounded corners, beside the style, curves every screen’s four corners like the windows. They take no clicks, and under the bezel they curve under its ends.

Ground

Every layer is made of one of three grounds, chosen per layer: the bar and the island here, under Bar → Style → Look, and the dock, the desktop’s widgets and the terminal on their own pages.

Ground	What it is
Classic	The island’s black, solid. The default
Glass	The terminal’s own ground: the accent over a blur of what is behind, with a lit edge
Liquid	A clear frosted pane that lets the wallpaper’s own colours through, lit from one side

The control centre three times over a painting of a rocket launch: solid black, tinted glass over the blur, and clear liquid glass lit from one side — Classic, glass and liquid.

The island always wears the bar’s ground. Shadow, under the ground, lifts the bar off the wallpaper.

Sides

The sides can sit straight on the wallpaper. Under Settings → Bar → Style → Sides, In capsules draws each group on its black capsule; On the wallpaper drops the capsules and leaves the icons and figures, white with a tight shadow so they read on a light picture as well as a dark one. The island keeps its capsule either way. In the One island and Bezel styles the sides already sit on its band, so the setting is locked there.

The same bar with the capsules gone: white icons and figures straight on the wallpaper either side of the black island — On the wallpaper.

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 mark for each of the desk’s workspaces, the one this screen shows lit; a click brings that workspace to this screen. It is drawn in one of seven styles (below).
The tray: the icons applications put in the system tray, in one capsule (below).
Buttons: a symbol and no figure: every door of the control centre, the control centre itself and Capture. They are Launcher, Workspace overview, Control centre, Capture, Appearance, Notes, Task board, Games, Keys, Packages, Settings and Session menu. Each opens its panel and stays lit while it is open; Settings opens the window, and Capture does what the capture key does: the photo at once, with the surface’s last choices. Statistics and the pet are modules here, not buttons.
Split: ends one capsule and starts the next.

Neighbouring modules share a capsule; the workspace strip and the tray are always a capsule of their 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 piece the machine cannot show (no battery, no screen that can be dimmed, no Bluetooth adapter, no grim for Capture) is not drawn, even when placed. Nothing on the bar moves by itself: a piece is where you put it.

Arranging

Open Settings (SUPER ,) → Bar → Layout. Under Layout is a picture of the bar in its style, with the real time in the island, and the catalogue under it.
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.
Drag a piece along the bar to move it, or off the bar to take it off.
Click a piece to pick it. A card under the bar has Remove, and the look of that piece alone.

The catalogue is four groups: the modules that measure, the modules that read out a state or a count, the buttons, then the workspace strip and the split. It 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.

The tray

The applications’ tray icons, in one capsule, drawn grey so they keep to the bar’s black. Place the Tray piece from the catalogue like any other; it is not drawn while no application has an icon in it. Past five icons, the rest fold behind a count, and a click on the count shows them.

On an icon	Does
Click	The application’s own action, usually opening its window
Right click	Opens the application’s menu in the island
Middle click	Its second action, where it has one
Wheel	Scrolls it, for the applications that listen

The menu is drawn by the shell, so every application’s menu looks like the island. An entry with a submenu replaces the list with it, and the chevron in the header steps back out. Up and Down move, Enter or Right opens, Left goes back.

How a piece reads

Two settings for the whole bar, under Bar → Layout → 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).

Only a module whose reading fills from empty to full gets a ring. Network, Bluetooth, Notifications, Weather, Markets, Screen time, Updates and Calendar keep their symbol in either shape.

The same bar four times: the symbols alone, the symbols with their figures, the rings, and the rings with their figures — Icon or ring, with its figure or without, for the whole bar.

Any module 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 and Timer also have When: Always, or While it runs, to be on the bar only while something is playing or counting.

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, 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; once the track’s lyrics are known, the lyrics beside it	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)
Codex	Codex’s mark, and the share used of the fullest limit still running	Each limit the plan sets, its share used and when it resets, and when it was read	Codex (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 of the screen you are on	A slider for each screen that can be dimmed	A backlight, or a monitor that answers DDC/CI
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)
Markets	The first pair’s price and the day’s change	The first pair charted, and up to four more listed with their price and change	A network connection (below)
Screen time	Today’s total	The day in brief: a ring by group, the hours and the three most used, with Open for the whole panel	—
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	—
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.
Codex appears once Codex has written a session log under ~/.codex/sessions (or $CODEX_HOME). The limits are read from the end of its newest logs, which Codex rewrites on every turn, so nothing is sent anywhere and the figures are as old as the last turn. A limit past its reset shows no share until Codex runs again.
Weather comes from wttr.in, which guesses the place from your connection when none is set. Set it under Settings → Modules → Weather → Location: a city, a postcode or an airport code.
Markets follows the pairs under Settings → Modules → Markets → Follow, BTC, ETH and EUR/USD out of the box. A coin alone is priced in US dollars and BTC/EUR in euros, from CoinGecko; two currencies, such as EUR/USD, follow the European Central Bank’s daily rate, through Frankfurter. Neither needs an account, and both see what you follow. The prices are read every five minutes while something on screen shows them.
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.
System: the full panel, with cores, disks and temperatures, is SUPER U.

Not modules on the bar: Notes, Tasks, Games, GitHub and Lyrics are desktop widgets, and notes, the task board and the games are buttons that open their panels: see the desktop, notes and tasks and games and pets. GitHub needs a username under Settings → Modules → GitHub → Username. The clock is the island itself.

Zen

SUPER CTRL B puts the bar away and gives its band to the windows. The island still comes down, on its own, for a notification, the volume or brightness, or a panel you open by its key, and goes back up when it is done. The desktop’s widgets stay where they are. Press it again for the bar, or flip it from anything else with qs ipc call bar toggle.

Size and workspaces

Under Settings → Bar → Style → 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 → 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. With more screens is whether every screen shares the same ten or each has ten of its own.

The strip draws in one of seven styles: Dots, the default, Bars or Rings, or the workspace’s number written out: Numbers, Roman, Kanji or Greek. The written styles mark the one in view with an accent pill that slides from one to the next. It is one setting for the whole bar, chosen from tiles on the Workspaces tab or on the strip’s own card in the bar’s layout.

The workspace strip seven times: dots, bars, rings, then the numbers written as digits, roman numerals, kanji and greek letters, each with the workspace in view lit in the accent — Dots, bars, rings, numbers, roman, kanji and greek.

For a bar without the strip, the workspace can sit beside the time on the island instead.