Scratchpad Helper

August 20, 2026 ยท View on GitHub

Scratchpad Helper picker

Scratchpad Helper is a DankMaterialShell plugin for mango that adds a visual scratchpad picker to DankBar. It supports standard scratchpads, cached previews, and optional managed named scratchpads.

Requirements

  • DankMaterialShell 1.5.0 or newer. Development is tested with DMS 1.5.3.
  • mango 0.16.0 (tested).
  • mmsg, included with mango, for the helper stash command.
  • grim is optional. Without it, cards use app icons instead of cached previews.

Installation

Scratchpad Helper is available in the DMS plugin registry:

dms plugins install scratchpadHelper

You can also install it manually:

git clone https://github.com/fluxwrk/dms-scratchpad-helper \
  ~/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugins/ScratchpadHelper
dms ipc call plugin-scan scan

Enable Scratchpad Helper in DMS Settings, then add it to DankBar. You can also add the optional Control Center widget if you want quick access there.

Usage

Click the DankBar widget to open the scratchpad picker. You can also open it from a keybind with:

dms ipc call scratchpadHelper togglePicker

For example, in mango:

bind=SUPER,P,spawn,dms ipc call scratchpadHelper togglePicker

Standard scratchpads reported by mango appear automatically. Click a card to restore that exact window.

To stash the focused window through the helper, run:

dms ipc call scratchpadHelper stash

For example, in mango:

bind=SUPER,S,spawn,dms ipc call scratchpadHelper stash

When grim is available, the plugin saves a preview before stashing. The DankBar picker supports arrow-key navigation, Enter to restore, and Escape to close.

Named scratchpads

Scratchpad Helper named scratchpad manager

Named scratchpad management is optional:

  1. Enable Named Scratchpad Manager in the plugin settings.

  2. Add this line once to ~/.config/mango/config.conf:

    source-optional=~/.config/mango/scratchpad-helper.conf

  3. Create a definition in the manager.

  4. Select Generate config.

  5. Select Reload Mango.

Scratchpad Helper only generates ~/.config/mango/scratchpad-helper.conf. It will never edit your main mango config.

A Managed card is linked to one of your definitions and can be toggled from the picker. External named scratchpads are still shown, but aren't clickable.

Known issues

  • mango 0.16.0 has an upstream bug that can affect helper-triggered stashing if the target window disappears during the operation. See mango issue #1289
  • DMS 1.5.3 generates an outdated mango action for Toggle Named Scratchpad keybinds. This has been fixed upstream and will be resolved in a future DMS release. See DMS PR #3118