DankMaterialShell (Quickshell)

A Quickshell built shell designed to be highly functional, in Material 3 style.

Specifically created for Niri.

Installation

1. Install required dependencies

This shell kinda depends on Niri, but only for workspaces and the active window widget in TopBar. So it could be used on any other wayland compositor with minimal changes.

# 1 --- Material Symbols Font (if not present)
mkdir -p ~/.local/share/fonts && curl -L "https://github.com/google/material-design-icons/raw/master/variablefont/MaterialSymbolsRounded%5BFILL%2CGRAD%2Copsz%2Cwght%5D.ttf" -o ~/.local/share/fonts/MaterialSymbolsRounded.ttf && fc-cache -f
# Can also be installed from AUR on arch linux, paru -S ttf-material-symbols-variable-git 

# 2 --- QuickShell (recommended to use a git build)
paru -S quickshell-git

2. Install optional dependencies to unlock certain features

Dependency	Purpose	If Missing
cava	Equalizer in TopBar uses Audio Data	Equalizer shifts at random
cliphist	Allows clipboard history view	No clipboard history view available
matugen	Allows dynamic themes based on wallpaper	Just can choose from preconfigured themes instead of dynamic colors
ddcutil (or brightnessctl)	Allows controlling brightness of monitors	No Brightness
wl-clipboard	Unlocks copy functionality of certain elements, such as process PIDs	No copy

# Arch
paru -S ttf-material-symbols-variable-git matugen cliphist cava wl-clipboard ddcutil

Note on networking: This shell requires NetworkManager for WiFi functionality.

3. Install DankMaterialShell

mkdir -p ~/.config/quickshell
git clone https://github.com/bbedward/DankMaterialShell.git ~/.config/quickshell/DankMaterialShell

4. Enable

qs -c DankMaterialShell

# In niri config
spawn-at-startup "qs" "-c" "DankMaterialShell"

# Optionally at bindings for spotlight launcher and clipboard history
Mod+Space hotkey-overlay-title="Run an Application: Spotlight" { spawn "qs" "-c" "DankMaterialShell" "ipc" "call" "spotlight" "toggle"; }
Mod+V hotkey-overlay-title="Open Clipboard History" { spawn "qs" "-c" "DankMaterialShell" "ipc" "call" "clipboard" "toggle"; }

Available IPC Events

IPC Events are events that can be triggered with qs cli.

qs -c DankMaterialShell ipc call <target> <function>

Target	Function	Description
spotlight	toggle	Toggle spotlight (app launcher)
clipboard	toggle	Toggle clipboard history view
processlist	toggle	Toggle process list (task manager)
wallpaper	set <path>	Set wallpaper to image path and refresh theme (if auto theme enabled)
wallpaper	get	Get current wallpaper path
lock	lock	Triggers lockscreen
lock	demo	Triggers lockscreen demo mode
lock	isLocked	Whether we're locked or not

(Optional) Setup Calendar events (Google, Microsoft, other Caldev, etc.)

1. Install khal, vdirsyncer, and aiohttp-oauthlib

# Arch
pacman -S vdirsyncer khal python-aiohttp-oauthlib

2. Configure vdirsyncer

Follow the documentation, you will have different steps depending on which calendars you want to sync with.

mkdir -p ~/.vdirsyncer

# Create ~/.vdirsyncer/config (a single google calendar would look like)
[general]
status_path = "~/.calendars/status"

[pair personal_sync]
a = "personal"
b = "personallocal"
collections = ["from a", "from b"]
conflict_resolution = "a wins"
metadata = ["color"]

[storage personal]
type = "google_calendar"
token_file = "~/.vdirsyncer/google_calendar_token"
client_id = "...."
client_secret = "...."

[storage personallocal]
type = "filesystem"
path = "~/.calendars/Personal"
fileext = ".ics"

# Sync
vdirsyncer sync

# Create crontab
crontab -e 
# e.g., this syncs every 5 minutes
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/vdirsyncer sync

3. Configure khal

# Run this
khal configure

# Choose option 2 for month/day/year
# Time format, doesnt matter
# Choose option 1 for use calendar alreayd on this computer