Pager Dots

A minimal virtual desktop switcher for the KDE Plasma panel.
A dot marks the current desktop, dimmed labels show the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

Install

Two ways to get it, pick one. The KDE Store is the easiest; the one command always pulls the newest release.

Option 1 — Download from the KDE Store (recommended)

1. Right-click the panel or desktop → Add Widgets…
2. Get New Widgets… → Download New Plasma Widgets
3. Search for Pager Dots → Install

Or open the store page directly: Pager Dots on store.kde.org

Option 2 — One command

Grabs the latest release and installs it — safe to re-run, it upgrades an existing copy.

curl -fLo /tmp/pd.plasmoid "$(curl -s https://api.github.com/repos/Patruxs/pagerdots/releases/latest | grep -om1 'https[^"]*\.plasmoid')" &&
kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -i /tmp/pd.plasmoid 2>/dev/null || kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -u /tmp/pd.plasmoid

Needs curl and kpackagetool6 (kf6-kpackage on Fedora, kpackage on Arch), normally already installed.

After either option

Right-click the panel → Add Widgets…, search for Pager Dots and drag it onto the panel.

To update later, use the store dialog or run the command again, then restart Plasma to reload it:

systemctl --user restart plasma-plasmashell.service

To remove the widget:

kpackagetool6 -t Plasma/Applet -r pat.pagerdots

Requirements

• KDE Plasma 6.2 or newer (Debian 13, Fedora 41+, Arch, Ubuntu 25.10+)
• KWin on X11 or Wayland

Features

• A dot for the current desktop, a label for every other one
• 18 label styles: numbers, letters (A B C / a b c), roman numerals (I II III / i ii iii), Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, Heavenly Stems, Hiragana, Katakana, Hangul, Arabic-Indic digits, bars (▁ ▂ ▃), dots, fill-up-to-current (● ● ○ ○), pill (GNOME's page indicator: small dots, with the current desktop a pill, and its own animation), or blank
• 35 dot animations — stretch, glide, elastic, spring, hop, swing, lift, glow, ripple, footprints, ring, sparks, pour, drop, pop, fade, beam, split, flash, wrap, steps, boomerang, topple, cartwheel, arrow, train, twinkle, hoop, billiards, recoil, loop, volley, flip, burst, pacman — plus a speed slider, or none at all
• Dot in your text or accent colour, with adjustable spacing
• Desktops with no windows drawn fainter, as faint as you like, so the ones in use stand out
• Click to switch, scroll or swipe to step through desktops (wrapping around, inverted, or not at all, as you like); click the current desktop to show the desktop, the Overview or the desktop grid
• Hover for the desktop name and the windows on it
• Right-click to add a desktop, remove the last one, rename the current one, or open the Virtual Desktops settings; or let the widget add and remove desktops for you, GNOME-style (one empty desktop at the end, always)
• Horizontal and vertical panels, following your Plasma colour scheme and font
• With desktops switched independently for each screen (Plasma 6.7 on Wayland), each widget shows and switches the desktop of its own screen

Right-click the widget → Configure Pager Dots… to change any of it: Appearance for the labels and the dot, with a preview at the top that plays your choices live, Behavior for the mouse, tooltips and desktop management.

Adding an animation

Each dot animation is one file in contents/ui/animations/; Dot.qml loads animations/<Name>.qml for the id <name> and calls its start(old, target) whenever the dot has to move. To add one:

1. Copy the closest existing file under a new name, say Bounce.qml. Pop.qml is the simplest swap, Hop.qml the simplest slide with a flourish on top, and Boomerang.qml the simplest of those that move the dot along the row themselves.
2. Set kind and, unless the default suits, travel; write start() to kick the animation off, and draw any shapes it needs as children. animations/DotAnimation.qml documents every hook and everything dot provides.
3. Add { id: "bounce", name: "Bounce", description: "…" } to MODES in contents/ui/Animations.js, which puts it on the settings page and in the tests.
4. Run tests/run, then restart Plasma and try it in a panel, including switching desktops again while it is still in flight.

start() is called again if the desktop changes mid-move. A fresh start sets everything up from scratch (setFrom(old) and dot.placeGhost(old) before restarting the animation); a cut-in should carry on from where the shapes are, as the existing files do.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub. New animations are the easiest contribution: see Adding an animation above, and keep in mind that on a dot a few pixels across only a distinct silhouette or tempo reads as a different animation.

Support

If Pager Dots is useful to you, you can support development:

 

License

GNU General Public License, version 2 or later. See LICENSE.