Display Modes

Display modes control what content is rendered on your attached panel. Each mode is a self-contained module that produces a view — title, items, sprites — which the UI loop renders to the display surface. CyberHUD ships with 27 user-facing display modes covering everything from clocks and system dashboards to serial monitors, interactive menus, and user-driven gauges.

Mode Summary

Mode ID	Title	Summary
attract_bokeh	Bokeh	Ambient floating bokeh light orbs with configurable size and saturation
attract_geometric	Geometric	Clusters of semi-transparent rotating rectangles with sinusoidal fade and glow effects
attract_hacking	Hacking	Rapid-fire command output simulation with scrolling terminal effect
attract_matrix	Attract Matrix	Cascading character rain effect inspired by the Matrix
attract_particles	Particles	Drifting particle field with glow and drift effects
attract_plasma	Plasma	Animated plasma color cycling with blob scaling
attract_shapes	Shapes	Pulsing geometric shapes with configurable complexity
attract_starfield	Starfield	Multi-layer parallax starfield animation
attract_waveform	Waveform	Flowing waveform traces with persistence and direction control
clock	Clock	Displays the current time with configurable style
cycle	Cycle	Auto-cycles through configured display modes on one or more regions at a configurable interval
dashboard	Dashboard	Consolidated status overview of STEMMA devices, GPIO, and system health
gauges	Gauges	User-supplied progress bars, rings, and dials for personal dashboards
gpio	GPIO	Read-only view of GPIO pin states with color coding
gpio_control	GPIO Control	Interactive GPIO pin toggling via buttons/joystick
image	Image	Displays a static image on the panel
menu	Menu	Interactive on-display navigation menu
pager	Pager	Tails a data source and presents text with smooth scrolling or page transitions
serial	Serial Monitor	Live serial communication monitor with scrolling text
stemma	STEMMA	Lists detected I2C STEMMA QT/QWIIC devices
system	System	Host information including hostname, uptime, CPU, memory, network
systemd	Systemd Boot	Boot progress diagnostics shown during daemon startup
thermal	Thermal	Temperature monitoring with thermal zone visualization
ticker	Ticker	Scrolling text feed from external data sources
usb	USB Bench	USB device identification with hot-plug detection
wifi	WiFi	Wireless network status, signal strength, and connection details
zmq	ZMQ	ZeroMQ message bus display for inter-process communication

Listing Available Modes

Not every mode is available on every panel. To see which modes are enabled for your active panel:

cyberhudctl display modes

For detailed mode metadata including configuration options:

cyberhudctl help modes

Tip

The output of cyberhudctl display modes reflects your panel's actual capabilities — only modes compatible with the panel's input controls and display resolution are listed.

Switching Modes

Switch the active display mode using either syntax:

# Switch to clock mode on the main region
cyberhudctl display set 0 clock

You can also cycle through modes:

cyberhudctl display next main.0
cyberhudctl display prev main.0

Regions are addressed using <surface>.<index> notation (e.g., main.0, left-aux.0) or bare integer coordinator indices (0, 1, 2). Run cyberhudctl display regions to see configured regions.

Note

If you are new to cyberhudctl, see the Getting Started CLI page for an introduction to command syntax and connection setup.

Mode Availability

flowchart TD
    PANEL[Panel Definition] --> HAS_INPUT{Has input pins?}
    HAS_INPUT -->|Yes| INTERACTIVE[Interactive mode set<br/>menu, gpio-control, ...]
    HAS_INPUT -->|No| PASSIVE[Passive mode set<br/>dashboard, clock, ...]
    INTERACTIVE --> RESOLUTION{Resolution / color depth}
    PASSIVE --> RESOLUTION
    RESOLUTION --> AVAILABLE[Available modes for panel]

Not all modes are available on every panel. The available modes depend on:

• Input controls — Interactive modes like menu and gpio-control require buttons or a joystick. Panels without input run in passive mode with dashboard as the default.
• Display capabilities — Some modes produce content optimized for specific resolutions or color depths.
• Panel configuration — Each panel defines its own ordered list of supported modes.

Use cyberhudctl display modes to see which modes are enabled for your active panel.

How Modes Work

flowchart LR
    subgraph "Mode Package (e.g. clock)"
        IMPL[Implements Mode interface]
        REG[Register in registry via init]
        CAT[Publish catalog metadata]
        CMD[Register console commands]
    end

    subgraph "Runtime"
        TICK[Render tick] --> BV[Call BuildView]
        BV --> COMP[Composite onto surface]
        COMP --> FLUSH[Flush to display hardware]
    end

    IMPL --> BV
    REG --> TICK
    CAT --> CLI[cyberhudctl discovery]

Each display mode is a Go package under display/modes/ that:

1. Implements the Mode interface — provides BuildView() and lifecycle methods
2. Registers in the central mode registry at import time via an init() function
3. Publishes catalog metadata (title, summary, options) for CLI discoverability
4. Optionally registers console commands for mode-specific interaction (e.g. ticker set, image set)

The daemon's UI loop queries the active mode on each render tick, calls BuildView() to get the current state (title, items, colors, sprites), and composites the result onto the display surface.

For more on how this fits into the overall system, see the Architecture page.