Medieval Orange Waybar

Emberline Waybar

Emberline Waybar is a compact Waybar rice with:

• Left-side Roman numeral workspaces.
• Center media controls with previous / play-pause / next grouped together on the left of the player.
• A scrolling MPRIS media title, artist line, animated playing state, and a clean idle state.
• Right-side CPU, memory, network, and day/date/time clock.

This rice is distro-portable, but it is Wayland-specific because Waybar is a Wayland bar. It will work on any Linux distro that can install Waybar, playerctl, JetBrains Mono, and Font Awesome. Workspace support depends on the Wayland compositor, so the installer can auto-detect common ones or you can choose the module manually.

Fast Install

From this folder:

bash install.sh

The installer will:

• Install packages when it recognizes your package manager.
• Back up any existing ~/.config/waybar to ~/.config/waybar-backups/.
• Copy this rice into ~/.config/waybar.
• Detect a workspace module for Hyprland, Sway, Niri, or use ext/workspaces by default.
• Reload a running Waybar, or start Waybar if you are in a Wayland session.

Useful installer options:

bash install.sh --skip-packages
bash install.sh --workspace-module hyprland/workspaces
bash install.sh --workspace-module sway/workspaces
bash install.sh --workspace-module niri/workspaces
bash install.sh --workspace-module wlr/workspaces
bash install.sh --workspace-module ext/workspaces
bash install.sh --no-reload
bash install.sh --dry-run

Requirements

Required:

• waybar
• playerctl
• bash
• sed
• A Wayland session
• An MPRIS-compatible music app for metadata and controls

Fonts:

• JetBrains Mono
• Font Awesome or Font Awesome 6 Free

Optional:

• jq, only used by the installer to validate the Waybar config after copying.

The music player integration is playerctl. It talks to any MPRIS-compatible player, such as Spotify, Strawberry, VLC, mpv with MPRIS support, many browser players, and similar apps. No single music player is hardcoded.

Manual Install

1. Install Packages

Install the packages for your distro.

Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install waybar playerctl fonts-font-awesome fonts-jetbrains-mono

Fedora:

sudo dnf install waybar playerctl fontawesome-fonts-all jetbrains-mono-fonts

Arch, EndeavourOS, Manjaro:

sudo pacman -S --needed waybar playerctl ttf-font-awesome ttf-jetbrains-mono

openSUSE:

sudo zypper install waybar playerctl fontawesome-fonts jetbrains-mono-fonts

Alpine:

sudo apk add waybar playerctl font-font-awesome font-jetbrains-mono

Void:

sudo xbps-install -Sy waybar playerctl font-awesome6 ttf-jetbrains-mono

Nix profile:

nix-env -iA nixpkgs.waybar nixpkgs.playerctl nixpkgs.font-awesome nixpkgs.jetbrains-mono

Package names for fonts vary more than waybar and playerctl. If a font package name fails, install the closest JetBrains Mono and Font Awesome package from your distro and continue.

2. Copy Config Files

From this rice folder:

mkdir -p ~/.config/waybar/scripts

cp waybar/config ~/.config/waybar/config
cp waybar/style.css ~/.config/waybar/style.css
cp waybar/scripts/media.sh ~/.config/waybar/scripts/media.sh
cp waybar/scripts/media-play.sh ~/.config/waybar/scripts/media-play.sh

chmod +x ~/.config/waybar/scripts/media.sh
chmod +x ~/.config/waybar/scripts/media-play.sh

3. Pick The Workspace Module

The packaged config defaults to:

ext/workspaces

That is useful for compositors/desktops that expose the ext workspace protocol. For common compositors, change both occurrences of ext/workspaces in ~/.config/waybar/config:

sed -i 's|ext/workspaces|hyprland/workspaces|g' ~/.config/waybar/config

Use one of these:

ext/workspaces
hyprland/workspaces
sway/workspaces
niri/workspaces
wlr/workspaces

If workspace clicks or labels do not work, the workspace module is the first thing to adjust.

4. Start Or Reload Waybar

If Waybar is already running:

pkill -x waybar
nohup waybar >/tmp/emberline-waybar.log 2>&1 &

If Waybar is not running:

waybar &

If you are not inside a Wayland session yet, log into your Wayland compositor first.

Autostart

Hyprland:

exec-once = waybar

Sway:

exec waybar

Niri:

spawn-at-startup "waybar"

Other desktops:

• Add waybar to your desktop environment's startup applications.
• Or add waybar & to your compositor startup file.

Media Controls

The player uses these commands:

playerctl previous
playerctl play-pause
playerctl next
playerctl metadata title
playerctl metadata artist

Test your player with:

playerctl status
playerctl metadata title

If those commands return data, the Waybar player should show the same track. If they do not, your music app is not exposing MPRIS metadata or it needs an MPRIS plugin.

Customization

Accent color:

#D95F3B

Search for it in waybar/style.css and replace it with your color.

Clock format:

"format": "{:%a %d %b  %H:%M}"

Edit it in waybar/config.

Scrolling title length:

MAX_LEN=35

Edit it in waybar/scripts/media.sh.

Workspace labels:

Edit format-icons in waybar/config. The packaged config includes I through XII.

Troubleshooting

Waybar does not start:

waybar -c ~/.config/waybar/config -s ~/.config/waybar/style.css -l debug

Icons show as boxes:

• Install Font Awesome.
• Run fc-cache -fv.
• Restart Waybar.

Music says no music playing:

• Start an MPRIS-compatible player.
• Run playerctl status.
• If the player is in a browser, enable media session support in that browser.

Workspaces show dots or do not click:

• Use the right workspace module for your compositor.
• Run the installer with --workspace-module MODULE, or edit ~/.config/waybar/config manually.

Restore the old config:

• The installer stores backups under ~/.config/waybar-backups/.
• Copy a backup back to ~/.config/waybar and reload Waybar.