KineticWE Layouts

A bar widget that shows the current KineticWE tiling layout under KWin and a dropdown panel to switch between the layouts you have enabled. Rather than guessing, the plugin reads KineticWE's /Tiling DBus interface, so the indicator stays in sync with layout keybinds, per-desktop layouts, and kwinrc changes.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	theblackdon/kineticwe-layouts
Entries	Service: bridge; bar widget: indicator; panel: layouts

Requirements

• KDE Plasma (KWin) with KineticWE installed and built the standard way, which exposes the /Tiling DBus interface (org.kde.KWin.Tiling). Without it the widget shows an error tooltip and the panel explains that KineticWE must be rebuilt.
• qdbus-qt6 (falls back to qdbus6 / qdbus) on PATH — used to query and set the current tiling layout.
• dbus-monitor on PATH — used to subscribe to layout and desktop-switch signals.

Usage

Add the widget from Settings → Bar, choose a section, and pick KineticWE Layouts from the widget list. The bar shows the active layout's glyph and, with the show_text setting on, its name. Left-click the widget to open the layouts panel, which lists every layout enabled in kwinrc ([Tiling] EnabledLayouts); clicking one switches the active output's current desktop straight away.

Open the panel from anywhere with:

noctalia msg panel-toggle theblackdon/kineticwe-layouts:layouts

KineticWE applies layouts per virtual desktop, so the indicator follows the active output's current desktop as you switch desktops, cycle layouts with keybinds, or change kwinrc settings.

Settings

Setting	Type	Default	Description
show_text	bool	true	Show the layout name next to the glyph in the bar. When off, only the glyph is shown.

Notes

Processes. The plugin shells out to two KWin/KDE tools, nothing else:

• qdbus-qt6 org.kde.KWin /Tiling org.kde.KWin.Tiling.currentLayout — on load and whenever a signal fires, plus a 5-second self-heal poll.
• qdbus-qt6 org.kde.KWin /Tiling org.kde.KWin.Tiling.enabledLayouts — on the same cadence; keeps the panel's list in sync with kwinrc.
• qdbus-qt6 org.kde.KWin /Tiling org.kde.KWin.Tiling.setLayout <kind> — only when a layout is picked in the panel.
• dbus-monitor --session "type='signal',interface='org.kde.KWin.Tiling'" "type='signal',interface='org.kde.KWin.VirtualDesktopManager',member='currentChanged'" — a single long-lived stream that triggers the re-queries above; updates feel instant while the 5-second poll doubles as a self-heal if the stream dies.

No network access. No filesystem reads or writes. All state lives in the plugin's in-memory state channel (noctalia.state) and is re-queried from the compositor; nothing is written to disk.

Compositor support. KWin / KDE Plasma only — KineticWE's tiling DBus interface is KWin-specific, so the plugin shows a placeholder under any other compositor.