misterio77/minicava

minicava is a tiny sound visualizer that lives in your computer's status bar, the thin strip at the top or bottom of your screen that shows things like the time, battery level, and system info. Instead of opening a separate window to see your music bouncing around, you get a compact little audio equalizer right next to your clock. Under the hood, it's a shell script that taps into your system's audio output and translates the sound levels into a small set of vertical bars. Those bars rise and fall with the music or whatever audio is playing. The "mini" part is key: it's built to fit into a very small amount of space, which is what makes it suitable for status bars rather than as a full-screen visualizer. This would appeal to people who like to customize their desktop environment, particularly Linux users running window managers like i3, sway, or similar setups where the status bar is a central piece of the interface. If you already use a tool like Polybar or Waybar and want to add a subtle "now playing" visual cue without eating screen real estate, this fits that niche. The README doesn't go into much detail beyond the core concept. There's no documentation about installation steps, configuration options, or dependencies, so you'd need to be comfortable poking around the script itself to figure out how to wire it into your particular status bar setup. Given that it has only a handful of stars and a minimal description, it reads like a small personal project shared with the community rather than a polished, documented tool. In short, it's a niche utility for desktop customization enthusiasts who want a touch of audio reactivity in their status bar and don't mind getting their hands a little dirty to set it up.