markup dynamic styled text
One block of Pango markup with {variable} substitution, composited over the wallpaper. The dynamic styled-text widget: a clock, a greeting, a live system-info line.
markup renders one block of Pango markup
with {variable} substitution, over the wallpaper. It ticks about once a second and
redraws only when the substituted string changes. Style with inline <span> tags; wrap it
in a chip with bg_color.
Unlike the other text widgets, when you omit font_size markup uses a larger default
(0.20 of the region height) so a bare clock reads at a glance; an explicit font_size is
honored as-is. content_halign also sets Pango line justification. See the
widgets overview for the shared font, anchor, and
debug_border keys.
Variables
Any {name} in text is substituted before rendering. An unknown {name} is left
verbatim — it never errors. Time and date tokens take an optional
strftime spec after a colon.
| Token | Resolves to |
|---|---|
{time} / {time:%H:%M} | Current time (default spec %H:%M). |
{date} / {date:%A %d %B} | Current date (default spec %x). |
{user} | $USER (or there). |
{name} | Your GECOS full name, then $USER, then there. |
{host} | The machine hostname. |
{uptime} | Human uptime, e.g. 2d 3h 47m. |
{loadavg} | 1 / 5 / 15-minute load averages. |
{kernel} | Kernel release (uname -r). |
{distro} | Distro pretty name, e.g. Ubuntu 24.04.1 LTS. |
{distro_version} | Distro version id, e.g. 24.04. |
[plugin.config]
text = "<span size='xx-large' weight='bold'>{time:%H:%M}</span>\n<span size='large'>Hi, {name}</span>"Properties
| key | type | default | meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
text | string | a bold time + date block | The template: Pango `<span>` markup plus `{variable}` placeholders (see the token table below). Newlines allowed. |
text_color | [r,g,b,a] | `[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.96]` | Base text fill. An inline `<span color=...>` in the markup overrides it per run. |
shadow_color | [r,g,b,a] | `[0.0, 0.0, 0.0, 0.45]` | Drop-shadow color. Alpha `0` = no shadow (bare text). |
bg_color | [r,g,b,a] | none | Optional chip behind the text. Omitted or fully transparent = bare markup. |
bg_radius | float | `0.5` | Chip corner radius as a fraction of the chip height (`0.5` = full capsule). |
bg_padding | float | `0.5` | Chip padding around the text, as a fraction of the font pixel size. |
every key is optional; omit it and the default applies. misspelled keys are silently ignored, so if a setting seems to do nothing, check the spelling against this table. colors are 0.0–1.0 float arrays.