EnderPulse

EnderPulse is a responsive, theme-aware audio visualizer for DankMaterialShell. It works as both a compact DankBar widget and a resizable desktop widget. Cava's live frequency data can be rendered as Unicode Braille, a spectrum, a mirrored pulse, or a radial orbit without modifying DMS itself.

Why we made it

EnderPulse started because we wanted a balanced, glanceable DankBar: system output moving on the left side of the centre and microphone input moving on the right. One side shows what the computer is playing while the other shows what the microphone is hearing. It grew from that idea into a flexible visualizer for other bar layouts and the desktop too.

Visual styles

The screenshots above were captured from DMS 1.5.3 while audio was playing through the desktop's normal audio graph.

Features

• DankBar support for horizontal and vertical panels
• Unicode Braille, spectrum, mirrored pulse, and radial orbit render modes
• System-output, default-microphone, detected-source, and custom-source capture
• Stable microphone scaling with a lightweight gate for low ambient input
• Material theme, aurora, ember, and monochrome palettes
• Adjustable band count, sensitivity, smoothing, glow, and background opacity
• Automatic fade after playback stops
• Rendering capped near 30 FPS, with work suspended while hidden or silent
• Adjustable DankBar length and normal desktop-widget resizing
• Dependency check with a clear message when cava is unavailable
• Bounded process recovery instead of an unbounded restart loop

Requirements

• DankMaterialShell 1.5.1 or newer
• Cava
• A working PipeWire or PulseAudio audio source supported by Cava

Install

Install EnderPulse from the Dank plugin registry:

dms plugins install enderPulse

For a manual installation:

git clone https://github.com/iquantecho/enderpulse.git \
  ~/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugins/enderPulse
dms restart

Open Settings → Plugins and enable EnderPulse. Add it to DankBar from the bar's widget list, add it to the desktop from the desktop widget browser, or use both surfaces. Its appearance and audio-source controls are available in the plugin settings.

Configuration

EnderPulse provides separate source, backend, visual-style, size, palette, frequency-band, sensitivity, smoothing, glow, and background controls. Plugin settings also let you create additional source profiles for DankBar's widget picker.

Audio sources

System output (automatic) follows Cava's default output monitor. Default microphone records the current PulseAudio/PipeWire-Pulse input. When pactl is available, EnderPulse also lists every detected input and output-monitor source in its settings.

To show output and microphone activity side by side, add the built-in EnderPulse - System output and EnderPulse - Microphone input entries from DankBar's widget picker. Widget placement happens only in DankBar settings. EnderPulse's plugin settings manage shared appearance and optional profiles for additional detected or custom sources.

For a native PipeWire object or another Cava backend, choose Custom Cava source, select the matching backend, and enter the source identifier. For PipeWire this can be an object.path, object.serial, or an output object's name with .monitor appended.

Troubleshooting

• No movement: play audio, verify that cava works in a terminal, and try selecting the source explicitly in EnderPulse settings.
• Plugin is blocked: install Cava using your distribution's package manager, then disable and re-enable EnderPulse.
• Settings do not appear: EnderPulse requires DMS 1.5.1 or newer.
• A device is missing from the list: install pactl (usually provided by libpulse or pipewire-pulse) or enter its Cava source identifier manually.

Development

Run the repository checks with:

./scripts/validate.sh

The script runs structured manifest and registry checks plus executable tests against the JavaScript frame parser used by QML. It also runs qmllint when available. Runtime acceptance is performed in a real DMS session because the plugin depends on DMS-injected QML services and an active audio graph.

Licence

EnderPulse is released under the MIT Licence. DMS and Cava are also MIT-licensed. EnderPulse invokes the separately installed Cava executable and does not bundle either project's source or binaries.