Novic

A sleek, Dynamic Island-style media player widget for Wayland compositors.

Features

• 🎵 Real-time Audio Visualizer - Animated waveform bars that react to your music
• 🎨 Minimal Design - Clean, floating widget that stays out of your way
• 🖱️ Hover to Expand - See full track info, album art, and controls on hover
• ⏯️ Media Controls - Play/pause, skip, and previous track buttons
• 📊 Progress Bar - Visual playback progress indicator
• 🔌 MPRIS Support - Works with Spotify, Firefox, VLC, and any MPRIS-compatible player

Preview

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  🎵  Song Title        |||||||      │  ← Collapsed (normal)
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│  ┌──────┐                           │
│  │ Art  │  Song Title               │  ← Expanded (on hover)
│  │      │  Artist Name    |||||||   │
│  └──────┘                           │
│  ◄◄    ▶    ►►     ───●────────    │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘

Installation

From Releases (Recommended)

Download the latest package from Releases:

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo dpkg -i novic_*_amd64.deb

Fedora/RHEL:

sudo dnf install novic-*.rpm

Building from Source

Dependencies

Debian/Ubuntu:

sudo apt install cmake g++ pkg-config libgtkmm-3.0-dev libpulse-dev
# gtk-layer-shell may need to be built from source

Fedora:

sudo dnf install cmake gcc-c++ pkg-config gtkmm30-devel pulseaudio-libs-devel gtk-layer-shell-devel

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S cmake gtkmm3 libpulse gtk-layer-shell

Build

git clone https://github.com/FabianTrafada/novic.git
cd novic
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j$(nproc)

Install

sudo make install

Or run directly:

./novic

Building Packages Locally

DEB Package:

./scripts/build-deb.sh 0.1.0
sudo dpkg -i novic_0.1.0_amd64.deb

RPM Package:

./scripts/build-rpm.sh 0.1.0
sudo dnf install novic-0.1.0-1.*.rpm

Usage

Simply run:

novic

The widget will appear at the top of your screen. It automatically detects media players via MPRIS.

Supported Players

Any MPRIS-compatible media player, including:

• Spotify
• Firefox / Chrome (web media)
• VLC
• Rhythmbox
• Clementine
• MPD (with mpDris2)
• And many more...

Requirements

• Wayland compositor with layer-shell support (Sway, Hyprland, etc.)
• PulseAudio or PipeWire (with PulseAudio compatibility)
• GTK 3 and gtkmm 3.0
• gtk-layer-shell

Configuration

Currently, Novic uses sensible defaults. Configuration file support is planned for future releases.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to:

• Report bugs
• Suggest features
• Submit pull requests

License

MIT License - see LICENSE for details.

Acknowledgments

• Inspired by Apple's Dynamic Island
• Built with GTK and gtkmm
• Layer shell support via gtk-layer-shell