Slow Bongo

A bongo cat that sits in your bar and slaps when you type. This is very early days, there will be bugs.

Features

• Bar Widget: Compact widget that fits seamlessly in your Noctalia bar
• Keyboard Reactive: Cat taps its paws in alternation when you type
• Audio Reactive: Optional rave mode and tappy mode that react to music
• Easy pause: Can quickly pause and un-pause reactivity with a single left click.
• Customizable Appearance: Choose from multiple color schemes and adjust size
• Font-Based Animation: Uses a bongo cat font for easy rendering
• Bar Widget: Compact widget that fits seamlessly in your Noctalia bar

Installation

1. Navigate to the Noctalia settings plugins section.

2. Enter the sources sub-menu.

3. Add Slow Bongo as a custom repository.

https://github.com/tuibird/slowbongo.git

4. Open the Noctalia plugins store and enable Slow Bongo.

Configuration

The plugin offers several customization options available in the settings panel:

Input Devices

The plugin automatically detects keyboard input devices on first run. You can manually select which input devices to monitor from the settings panel.

Colors

The colours are all pulled from your current Noctalia colourscheme.

Rave Mode

When enabled, the cat changes colors to the beat when music is playing.

Tappy Mode

When enabled, the cat taps along to the beat when music is playing instead of only reacting to keyboard input.

Size and Position

• Cat Size: Scale the cat from 50% to 150% of default size
• Vertical Position: Fine-tune the cat's vertical alignment in the bar

Requirements

Essential

• evtest: Required for keyboard input detection

  # Fedora/RHEL
  sudo dnf install evtest
  
  # Ubuntu/Debian
  sudo apt install evtest
  
  # Arch
  sudo pacman -S evtest
  

• Input group membership: Your user must be in the input group to read keyboard events

  sudo usermod -a -G input $USER
  

  Restart for the group change to take effect.

Troubleshooting

Cat not responding to keyboard input

1. Check that evtest is installed:

   which evtest
   

2. Verify you're in the input group:

   id -nG | grep input
   

3. Make sure at least one input device is selected in the settings panel.

Technical Details

• Uses evtest to monitor keyboard events from /dev/input/event* devices
• Integrates with Noctalia's SpectrumService for audio visualization
• Custom font file (bongocatfont.woff) contains the cat animations
• Alternates between left (1) and right (2) paw animations, returning to idle (0) after configurable timeout

License

MIT

Credits

• Thank you to Kitgore for the inital bongo cat font
• Noctalia plugins for the amazing guides/examples