Skip to content

Conky Studio History

Jump to bottom
Bobby Comet edited this page Aug 4, 2026 · 2 revisions

Conky Studio History

Conky Studio started in 2022 as a personal tool I built for creating and managing my own custom Conky HUDs.

My original goal was simple: I wanted a faster and more reliable way to build desktop overlays without having to constantly edit large amounts of Lua, Cairo, and Conky configuration by hand.

Early Development

The early versions were intentionally minimal. At that point, the core of the application was really just four things:

  • Nodes – the basic building blocks of a Conky layout
  • Node Palette – where I could pick and add nodes
  • Theme Manager – for handling visual themes
  • Node Properties – the panel for inspecting and editing node settings

The engine that drives Conky Studio today was always there. Everything else came later, after I decided to turn it into something I could actually release to other people.

Evolution and Redesign

Over time I kept evolving the tool through multiple internal versions. I added features, improved the workflows, and fixed the problems I ran into while using it myself every day.

Before the public release I completely redesigned the architecture. The goal was no longer just to support my own workflow. I wanted it to become a flexible platform that other people could understand, customize, and extend.

That meant changing how I thought about the project:

A personal tool only needs to make sense to its creator.
A public tool has to make sense to people who have never seen the original workflow.

That shift led to a lot of improvements in architecture, documentation, extensibility, compatibility, and the overall design of the interface.

These are some of the things I added specifically to get it ready for release:

  • Plugins
  • Undockable windows
  • Help and Tools tabs
  • Community and OpenDesktop Store integrations
  • Zip exports
  • Editable README and theme.json
  • Custom Lua and custom scripts
  • Version checking
  • Multiple DE support
  • More nodes
  • Import themes
  • Legacy imports (with limitations)

Version Numbering

The first public release uses the 1.x version line because it represents the first stable public architecture and release model.

The internal development history came long before the public version numbers:

Version Numbering

The first public release uses the 1.x version line because it represents the first stable public architecture and release model.

The internal development history predates the public version numbering:

Personal development versions
↓
Architecture redesign
↓
Public Conky Studio 1.x releases

The 1.x release does not represent the age of the project. It represents the beginning of the public platform.

Clone this wiki locally