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https://github.com/gyng/widgetsack

Themable desktop widget overlay for Windows. System meters, clocks, now playing, Home Assistant via a visual editor. Tauri + React.
https://github.com/gyng/widgetsack

desktop-customization desktop-overlay desktop-widgets hardware-monitoring home-assistant mqtt now-playing rainmeter rainmeter-alternative react rust system-monitor tauri typescript widgets windows

Last synced: 17 days ago
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Themable desktop widget overlay for Windows. System meters, clocks, now playing, Home Assistant via a visual editor. Tauri + React.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
#  widgetsack





  widgetsack demo layout: clock, CPU/GPU gauges, a countdown timer, memory/VRAM bars, up/down network graphs, an audio spectrum, a now-playing card, a stock ticker, an analog clock, Home Assistant temperature/climate/light tiles, and a DDC monitor input switcher




[**👉 installer download for the latest release**](https://github.com/gyng/widgetsack/releases/latest)



A themable desktop widget overlay for Windows.



Put system meters (CPU, per-core, GPU/VRAM, memory, network), clocks, and the currently-playing track on a transparent, click-through overlay across all your monitors and arrange them with a

built-in visual editor. Widgets follow a sensor + meter model but the layout is a live CSS-flow editor, styling is plain CSS + design

tokens, and it ships with Home Assistant, MQTT, and stock-quote integrations.



## Widget gallery



See: [**widget reference**](docs/widgets.md) · [**templating & formulas**](docs/templating.md) · [**theming**](docs/theming.md)



The screenshots regenerate from the registry: `npm run gen:gallery` (in `client/`); both reference

docs regenerate from the code with `npm run gen:docs`.



## Layout studio





  widgetsack studio: the layout editor showing the demo layout on the stage, the section nav, the canvas toolbar, and the widget inspector




## Features



- **Widgets:** gauges, bars, sparklines, text, digital + analog clocks, a month calendar, a per-core

  CPU grid, a GPU panel, a battery indicator, a disk/storage panel, a top-process monitor, an audio

  spectrum, a now-playing card, a weather card, a stock ticker, an application fence or zone, a web

  iframe, action buttons, a DDC monitor input switcher, an audio output switcher, and Home Assistant

  tiles — sensor- or [formula-driven](docs/templating.md)

  and fully restylable ([reference](docs/widgets.md)).

- **Sensors:** CPU (total/per-core/freq), memory + swap, network, disks (+ I/O), uptime, battery, the

  busiest process (by CPU/RAM/disk/GPU), and NVIDIA GPU (NVML) — demand-gated, so only what's on screen

  is sampled.

- **Now playing:** Windows media via GSMTC — Spotify, foobar2000, browsers, and more

  ([support table](https://github.com/ModernFlyouts-Community/ModernFlyouts/blob/main/docs/GSMTC-Support-And-Popular-Apps.md)).

- **Integrations:** Home Assistant (live states + light/climate/fan/cover/lock/scene/switch/media

  controls), MQTT, stock quotes, and

  weather (Open-Meteo, keyless).

- **Overlay:** transparent, click-through, always-on-top, one per monitor — per-widget

  click-through still lets buttons/controls catch clicks. Single-instance, optional autostart.

- **Studio:** visual editor — drag/resize/snap a CSS-flow layout, browse sensors, build reusable

  widgets, edit themes, import/export "sacks". `Ctrl+Alt+E`; live-reloaded `widgets.json`.

- **Templates:** one-click starter groups (clock, system, network, now-playing) recreated from

  classic Rainmeter skins.

- **Macros:** bind a button to a sequence of actions (HA service calls, media transport).

- **Plugin packages:** drop-in template/theme bundles from the community — declarative, opt-in,

  scanned ([authoring guide](docs/third-party-plugins.md)).

- **Theming:** per-widget CSS (highlighting/linting editor), design-token themes (one for every

  monitor, or a different theme per monitor), system fonts.

- **Window zones:** define snap regions and drag any app's window — including custom-titlebar apps

  like Electron/UWP — into them, or auto-arrange open windows by rule.

- **Perfect for secondary and side monitors**: Corsair Xeneon Edge, Lamptron, Turzx, etc.

- Built with Tauri + React.



## Coming from Rainmeter?



widgetsack is a web-first take on what a widget suite does — system meters, clocks, now-playing, and a transparent always-on-top overlay — with a few differences:



- **Higher memory usage**: as this is a web and browser-based overlay each monitor with active widgets will take a minimum of 100MB of RAM and 40MB of VRAM

- **Sensor + meter instead of `.ini`:** the same measure→meter idea (a sensor feeds a meter), but you

  wire it in a visual **studio** instead of hand-editing config files. Layout is CSS flexbox and

  styling is plain per-widget CSS + design tokens.

- **Built-in skins as templates:** the bundled templates recreate classic skin layouts and drop in

  with one click; build your own reusable widgets in the widget designer.

- **Built-in sources:** beyond local system sensors, pull in Home Assistant, MQTT, and live stock

  quotes.

- **Layout containers**: Grids, rows, columns and floating widgets that use HTML and CSS for styling



## Usage



Download the installer from the [latest release](https://github.com/gyng/widgetsack/releases/latest).



The overlay starts passive (click-through). To arrange widgets:



1. **Enter edit mode** — the tray icon's **"Edit layout"**, or press **`Ctrl+Alt+E`**.

2. Drag widgets to move, drag the handles to resize. Use the **palette** (bottom-left) to

   add widgets and the **inspector** to edit a selected widget's sensor / position / config.

3. **Exit edit mode** the same way. The layout saves to `widgets.json` (in the app config

   dir) and reloads automatically if you hand-edit that file.



### Theming



Each widget can take a CSS override. Eg, to turn images grayscale:



```css

img {

  filter: grayscale(1);

}

```



### Now playing — source priority



If multiple audio sources are active, a priority list of executable names decides which to

show (reachable in edit mode; "All media" lists the current sources).



### Autostart



Toggle autostart in settings, or add `widgetsack.exe` to Startup apps in Task Manager.



## Plugins



widgetsack has two plugin layers, both managed from the studio's **Plugins** section:



- **Built-in integrations** — Home Assistant, MQTT, stock quotes, and the AI provider are

  first-party plugins configured in the studio. Tokens and API keys stay in the Rust backend;

  the webview never holds them.

- **Third-party plugin packages** — drop-in community bundles that add **templates**

  (ready-made widget clusters with insert-time options), optionally a **theme**, and optionally

  a **sandboxed sensor source**: a small `source.js` that polls an HTTP API and feeds custom

  sensors you can bind to any meter or formula as `pkg..*`.



Install a package by dropping its folder into the app-config `plugins/` directory, or via

**Plugins → Packages → Install from URL…** — paste `owner/repo`, a GitHub link, or any https

`plugin.json` URL. Update checks are manual (per-package *Check updates*); nothing is fetched in

the background.



Packages are opt-in and sandboxed by design:



- **Nothing runs on install.** Every package lands disabled; enabling it is a per-machine

  allowlist, and re-installing starts from zero trust.

- **Templates and themes are declarative data** — a package can't ship its own components. The

  only code surface is `source.js`, which runs in a QuickJS-in-WASM sandbox with zero

  capabilities: no network, no DOM, no Tauri, a ~100 ms CPU budget per tick.

- **The host does the fetching** against a Rust-enforced https allowlist of exact hostnames the

  manifest declares — consented by name on first enable, re-confirmed if an update changes the

  list.

- **Theme CSS is the trust boundary:** it's scanned (remote `url()`/`@import`, viewport

  overlays), and a flagged theme asks for explicit confirmation. Don't enable packages from

  sources you don't trust.



To write one, see the [authoring guide](docs/third-party-plugins.md) and the reference

[sample pack](examples/packages/sample-pack) — a parameterized clock template, a weather card

driven by a sandboxed [open-meteo](https://open-meteo.com) source, and a small theme, CI-tested

against the real pipeline on every build.



## Development



Build/run instructions, the test gates, and the release process live in

[docs/development.md](docs/development.md). The architecture and roadmap are in

[docs/widget-platform.md](docs/widget-platform.md).



## License



Licensed under either of



- Apache License, Version 2.0 ([LICENSE-APACHE](LICENSE-APACHE) or

  )

- MIT license ([LICENSE-MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or )



at your option.



Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted

for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be

dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.





  widgetsack logo — a maneki-neko holding a money sack and a little CRT