Waybar utils

Two Waybar widget scripts: a color picker (with history) and a screen recorder (with audio, region or output selection).

Package: waybar-utils

---

Overview

src/waybar/
├── default.nix
└── bin/
    ├── colorpicker    # hyprpicker + history + JSON output for waybar
    └── recorder       # wl-screenrec region/output recording with audio

---

colorpicker

A screen color picker using hyprpicker. Picks a color, copies it to the clipboard, stores the last 10 picks in ~/.cache/colorpicker/colors, and can output waybar-compatible JSON.

Modes

Invocation	Behavior
colorpicker (no args)	Pick a color → copy to clipboard → save to history → signal waybar
colorpicker -l	Print the saved color history
colorpicker -j	Output waybar JSON (current color as text, history as tooltip)

How it works

killall -q hyprpicker
color=$(hyprpicker)
echo "$color" | wl-copy

prevColors=$(head -n $((limit - 1)) "$loc/colors")
echo "$color" >"$loc/colors"
echo "$prevColors" >>"$loc/colors"
pkill -RTMIN+1 waybar

Waybar JSON output (-j)

Produces a JSON object with the current color as text and the full history as a tooltip (each color shown with a swatch span):

{
  "text": "<span color='#62AEEF'></span>",
  "tooltip": "<b>   COLORS</b>\n\n<b>#62AEEF</b>  <span color='#62AEEF'></span>  \n..."
}

Arguments	none, -l (list), or -j (json)
History	~/.cache/colorpicker/colors (last 10)
Waybar signal	pkill -RTMIN+1 waybar (real-time signal 1)
Runtime deps	hyprpicker, wl-clipboard (wl-copy), killall, jq

Waybar module config

"custom/colorpicker": {
  "format": "{}",
  "exec": "colorpicker -j",
  "on-click": "colorpicker",
  "tooltip": true,
  "signal": 1
}

---

recorder

A screen recording toggle using wl-screenrec with audio capture. Records to ~/Videos/Screen/ with a timestamped filename.

Behavior

• If recording is active → stop it, signal waybar, exit.
• If idle and no args → select an output (monitor) via slurp -o.
• If idle with any arg → select a custom region via slurp.
• Records with the default audio sink's monitor as the audio device.

if pgrep wl-screenrec &>/dev/null; then
  kill -s SIGINT "$(pgrep -x wl-screenrec)" && notify "Screen Recording Stopped" "..."
  pkill -RTMIN+4 waybar
  exit 0
fi

if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
  dim="$(slurp -o)"       # output selection
else
  dim="$(slurp)"          # region selection
fi

audio_device="$(wpctl inspect @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@ | grep "node.name" | cut -d"\"" -f2).monitor"

wl-screenrec \
  -f "$filename" \
  -g "$dim" \
  --audio --audio-device "$audio_device" \
  &

Notifications

Event	Notification
Started	"Screen Recording Started" - "Recording to <file>"
Stopped	"Screen Recording Stopped" - "Recording Stopped"
Cancelled (no area)	"Screen Recording Cancelled" - "No Area Is Selected"
Failed	"Screen Recording Failed" - "Failed to start recording"

Arguments	none (output mode) or any arg (region mode)
Output dir	~/Videos/Screen/
Filename	$(date +%b-%d-%Y_%H:%M:%S).mp4
Waybar signal	pkill -RTMIN+4 waybar (real-time signal 4)
Runtime deps	wl-screenrec, slurp, wireplumber (wpctl), libnotify, killall, jq

Waybar module config

"custom/recorder": {
  "format": "{icon}",
  "format-icons": ["", ""],
  "exec": "recorder -j 2>/dev/null || true",
  "on-click": "recorder",
  "on-click-right": "recorder region",
  "signal": 4
}

Audio device

The recorder captures the monitor of the default audio sink - i.e. what you hear is what gets recorded. This is derived dynamically via wpctl inspect @DEFAULT_AUDIO_SINK@.

---

Build overrides

None - waybar-utils has no override arguments.

Usage

# Color picker
nix run github:semi710/utils#waybar-utils -- colorpicker
nix run github:semi710/utils#waybar-utils -- colorpicker -j
nix run github:semi710/utils#waybar-utils -- colorpicker -l

# Recorder
nix run github:semi710/utils#waybar-utils -- recorder
nix run github:semi710/utils#waybar-utils -- recorder region

{ inputs, pkgs, lib, ... }:
let u = inputs.utils.packages.${pkgs.system};
in {
  home.packages = [ u.waybar-utils ];
}