Dynamic Music Pill is a GNOME Shell extension that enhances your desktop experience by adding a visually appealing media controller to your GNOME panel. This tool displays album art, the name of the artist, and the track title, accompanied by an animated waveform visualizer.
Recently updated to version 20, the extension introduces several new features. Notably, it now includes a compact mode that hides all text, app filtering options to customize which media players are displayed, and the ability to set fallback album art for those applications or streams that don’t provide it.
Dynamic Music Pill is compatible with any media player that supports MPRIS, which encompasses a majority of common applications like Spotify, Rhythmbox, and VLC. When enabled, the extension disables the default media controller built into GNOME Shell for a seamless experience.
Basic controls are user-friendly: a left-click toggles playback, a right-click opens a full pop-up controller, and a middle-click brings the active player to the forefront. These controls are also customizable, allowing users to modify their setups to suit their preferences.
The extension offers extensive configuration options, including customization of background color, transparency levels, visibility of player controls, and album art rotation. While primarily designed for GNOME Shell, it works well with other extensions like Dash to Panel and Dash to Dock, making it visually appealing and functional.
Dynamic Music Pill supports GNOME 45 to 49. Users running Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or later can try it out. By default, it embeds itself in the Ubuntu Dock, which might not appear aesthetically pleasing. To fix this, you can adjust the settings in the extension’s Preferences to embed it in the top panel instead.
You can download Dynamic Music Pill from the GNOME Extensions website.