On a Mac, CPU, memory and network sit in the menu bar. On Windows and Linux, each question was its own trip: Task Manager or top for the CPU, the file manager for disk space, a weather app before heading out. So I built Skyline: one slim bar with all of it, and one click for the details.
Native, not a web page
A 28-pixel bar doesn't need a browser engine. One Rust core collects the numbers for both apps: WinUI 3 on Windows, GTK 4 on Linux.
Lighter than the apps it watches
My first build used 99 MB of memory. Four changes fixed it:
- No GPU stack for a tiny bar. GTK loaded OpenGL anyway, about 50 MB of it.
- Scan processes only when someone looks. The top-5 list runs only while a panel is open.
- Wait for events instead of polling. When the screen locks, sampling stops.
- Draw only what changed. Most seconds, nothing redraws at all.
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Memory | 99 MB | 34 MB |
| Idle CPU (whole machine) | 0.095 % | 0.062 % |
| Cold start | 133 ms | 67 ms |
Linux, 4 cores, 60-second runs.
Since then, and next
Skyline now shows storage, has two new item styles (a ring gauge and a 20-second mini graph), and an optional weather with air quality. Weather is off by default and is the only feature that uses the internet. Next: real numbers on Windows hardware, a true docked bar on Wayland, and GPU temperatures if they can be read cheaply.
Skyline is free, with no telemetry and no account. If there's a number you'd like on the bar, email me at [email protected].