Singularity

Unified Quick-Settings Applet for the COSMIC Desktop Environment

Singularity is a comprehensive control center designed exclusively for COSMIC. It consolidates essential system controls—audio, network, power, bluetooth, and media playback—into a unified interface.

Built with Rust and libcosmic, Singularity integrates directly with native Linux system services to provide a responsive and cohesive user experience tailored for the COSMIC ecosystem.

Why Singularity?

The default COSMIC experience provides separate applets for network, audio, and battery. While modular, this can sometimes lead to a cluttered panel. Singularity takes a unified approach similar to mobile operating systems or other modern desktop environments:

• Efficiency: Access all critical toggles in a single click.
• Aesthetics: A cohesive design that looks great on your desktop.
• Performance: Written in Rust for near-instant startup and low memory usage.

Features

Network Management

Powered by NetworkManager, Singularity provides quick access to connectivity settings:

• Toggle Wi-Fi status.
• Connect to known networks.
• Activate VPN connections.
• Direct links to full system network settings.

Audio Control

Advanced audio management via PipeWire integration:

• Adjust system volume.
• Quick mute/unmute toggles.
• Switch dynamically between available audio output and input devices.
• Synchronization with WirePlumber and standard PipeWire configurations.

Media Playback

MPRIS support enables control over active media players (e.g., Spotify, Firefox, VLC):

• View current track information (Title, Artist).
• Playback controls: Play, Pause, Next, Previous.

Bluetooth

Integrated with BlueZ for wireless device management:

• Toggle Bluetooth power state.
• View status of connected devices.

Power Management

Comprehensive power controls supporting both systemd-logind and elogind:

• Performance Profiles: Switch between Balanced, Performance, and Power-Saver modes.
• System Actions: Lock screen, Suspend, Power Off, Reboot, and Log Out.
• Battery Monitoring: View battery percentage and status via UPower.

Hardware Controls

• Display: Adjust screen brightness.
• Keyboard: Adjust keyboard backlight intensity.

Adaptive Interface

The interface automatically adapts to the host hardware. Controls for missing features—such as battery status on desktops or keyboard backlights on unsupported devices—are automatically hidden to maintain a clean layout.

Installation

Prerequisites

To build and run Singularity, ensure the following tools and services are available on your system:

Build Tools:

• rust and cargo (Latest stable toolchain)
• just (Command runner)
• git

Runtime Dependencies:

• COSMIC Desktop Environment (libcosmic)
• NetworkManager
• UPower
• BlueZ
• PipeWire
• systemd-logind OR elogind

Building from Source

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/sreevikramr/singularity.git
   cd singularity

2. Build the release binary:

   just build-release

3. Install to the system: This command installs the binary to /usr/bin, and the necessary desktop entry and icons to /usr/share.

   sudo just install

Uninstalling

To remove Singularity from your system:

sudo just uninstall

Usage

Adding to the COSMIC Panel

Once installed, you must manually add the applet to your panel:

1. Right-click anywhere on an existing COSMIC panel.
2. Select Panel Settings.
3. Navigate to the Applets section.
4. Click Add Applet.
5. Select Singularity from the list.

Configuration

Singularity currently relies on system-wide configuration for services (NetworkManager, BlueZ, etc.). Specific applet preferences are planned for future releases.

Roadmap

We are actively working on the following features to reach version 1.0:

• Customizability: Allow users to reorder or hide specific modules within the applet.
• Keyboard Navigation: Full support for navigating the interface using arrow keys and shortcuts.
• Localization: Translations for major languages.
• Notifications: Integration with the notification daemon for critical alerts (e.g., low battery).
• Do Not Disturb: Quick toggle to silence notifications.
• Theme Support: Better integration with custom COSMIC themes beyond the default system colors.

Development

This project uses just to manage development tasks.

• Run locally: Builds and runs the applet in a standalone window for testing.

  just run

• Linting: Checks code against project standards using clippy.

  just check

• Clean: Removes build artifacts.

  just clean

License

This project is licensed under the GPL-3.0 License. See the LICENSE file for details.