Niri Workspaces

A workspace switcher for niri that draws the workspaces the way Noctalia's Focus Hint style does — a dot for every workspace you are not on, an expanded pill with its name for the one you are — with one thing the built-in workspaces widget cannot do: leave named workspaces out of the bar entirely.

That is for a shelf rather than a desk. A scratchpad (nscratch and similar) parks windows on a workspace it never shows you, and a scratch workspace is not a place you switch to — it is where Nemo waits until you call it. Noctalia's own widget has no hidden_workspaces setting, so that shelf costs a pill, or after this a dot, that means nothing.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	madmedicnl/niri-workspaces
Entries	Bar widget: niri-workspaces

Requirements

niri on PATH. The widget reads workspace state from niri msg --json workspaces and follows it with niri msg --json event-stream; the plugin API exposes no compositor state. Clicking a dot runs niri msg action focus-workspace, and scrolling runs focus-workspace-up / -down.

Noctalia 5.2 or newer (plugin API 32 — the tooltips on the dots and the pill).

Usage

Add Niri Workspaces from Settings → Bar → Add widget, or name it in the bar's config file directly:

[widget.workspace-dots]
type = "madmedicnl/niri-workspaces:niri-workspaces"

[bar.default]
center = ["workspace-dots"]

Remove the built-in workspaces widget from that bar section if both should not show.

• Left click a dot or the pill: focus that workspace.
• Scroll over the widget: the next or previous workspace.
• Hover a dot: its name, unless labels were turned down with max_label_chars.

The workspace you are on is always drawn, even if it is in hidden — an operator on an invisible workspace with no way back is worse than a dot. A workspace with no windows is left out while hide_empty is on, which is what niri's trailing empty workspace needs.

Settings

Settings live in Settings → Plugins, the gear beside Niri Workspaces.

Setting	Type	Default	Description
hidden	string	scratch	Workspace names left out of the bar, comma separated. Case does not matter.
hide_empty	bool	true	Draw nothing for a workspace with no windows. The focused one is always drawn.
dot_size	int	7	Dot diameter in logical pixels.
dot_color	string	tertiary	Colour of the dots: a palette role or a hex value.
focused_color	string	primary	Colour of the focused workspace's pill.
focused_text_color	string	on_primary	Colour of the name inside it.
font_size	int	0	0 uses the bar's own font size.
max_label_chars	int	0	Truncate the focused name; 0 shows it whole.
gap	int	6	Space between the dots and the pill, in logical pixels.

Colours are palette roles, so they follow the theme; a hex value pins one.

Notes

• Workspace state is one niri msg --json workspaces snapshot at load, again every 60 seconds as a self-heal, and niri msg --json event-stream for live updates. Only niri is spawned; nothing else, no network, no files written.
• Multi-monitor: each bar shows the workspaces of its own output when the host can name it, and falls back to the globally focused workspace otherwise.
• No app icon is drawn on the focused pill. The built-in Focus Hint style draws the focused window's icon; a plugin cannot read it.
• The focus styling follows the palette, so a theme change recolours it without a reload.

License

MIT.