Sonar and Shelves

Sonar and Shelves

These controls are available on the edge channel (dev). Stable installations gain them with the next release.

Reveal controls with Sonar

In Settings → Sonar & Shelves, enable Sonar, then use Preview or Super + grave. A two-second ping starts at the cursor and labels available shell and plugin controls across outputs. The radar wave follows the theme accent, with faint trailing rings and soft rounded highlights. Shelf edges answer with a short ripple. Reduced motion shows the answers without the sweep. A key or click dismisses the ping; locks and blocking prompts cancel it.

Show disabled-feature ghosts is a separate opt-in. Ghosts offer Open, Enable or Settings after checking the feature's current eligibility. Reading a disabled plugin's metadata does not load its QML. Enable uses the existing plugin command and reports failures.

Configure shelves by output

Select a connector in Settings → Sonar & Shelves. Enable left and right docks separately, set pinned desktop IDs, and choose tabs. New outputs start disabled. Unplugging an output closes its shelves and retains its saved configuration.

Super + [ and Super + ] toggle the focused output's enabled edge. A shelf stays open until click-away, the same shortcut, Escape or Back. Pointer leave keeps it open. Click-away consumes the click. A lock, blocking prompt, disable or output removal also closes it.

Running apps belong to the selected output by default; the all-output option broadens that scope. Shelf icons share the released dock's pinned/running grouping. Media, agent sessions and quick controls use the existing services. Plugin tabs follow the registry's enable, safe-mode, layer and data gates.

Visible handles, icon magnification, notch tab placement, launch echo and tab acknowledgement each default off. Handles use their visible bounds for input. Closed docks and panels hold no content; with handles off, the shelf host also unmounts. Magnification is capped at 1.15 and honors reduced motion. Launch echo answers a new app window; acknowledgement answers a ready panel. Both effects have finite lifetimes.

Shortcuts stay available when wallpaper or theme changes reload the compositor. User shortcuts take priority. The shell checks the live bind table before registering these combinations; Settings reports conflicts or unavailable checks. Preview and IPC remain available.

IPC and runtime state

qs -c aphotic ipc call sonar ping
qs -c aphotic ipc call sonar dismiss
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves toggle left
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves toggleOn DP-2 right
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves openTab media left
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves openTabOn DP-2 media right
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves close
qs -c aphotic ipc call shelves closeOn DP-2
aphotic runtime

The methods without an output argument use the focused output. Runtime state includes open shelf edges and mounted host count. See Plugin System for plugin contracts.