[Media] Orbolay - A Discord overlay alternative created with Rust + Freya
![[Media] Orbolay - A Discord overlay alternative created with Rust + Freya](https://i.redd.it/95m6zifax0ch1.png)
Hey all!
I've spent the last year or so, on and off, working on an alternative Discord overlay that could support Linux/Mac/Windows. I did it mostly as a challenge for myself to see what the Rust UI ecosystem was like after reading the "A 2025 Survey of Rust GUI Libraries", but I've kept to it as it's ended up being pretty fun to maintain and add to. A secondary reason is that I've been exclusively on Linux for the past couple years, which means no official overlay for me regardless!
The whole thing is written in Rust with the help of Freya which I cannot speaking highly enough about. The developer, u/mkenzo_8, is super responsive and it's really coming together as v0.4.0 continues seeing release candidates (though I have to deal with a random breaking change every RC bump, guess it's what I signed up for :P).
It features a customizable layout/colors/border radius, shows notifications and has clickable controls for mute/deafen/disconnect and a built-in soundboard panel. It has support for both the official Discord clients as well as third-party client mods (so long as an additional bridge plugin is installed), though third-party support has fallen a bit behind as I've stopped using third-party clients personally (PRs welcome!).
It's in a state now where I am okay-enough with sharing it outside of my echo chamber circle, so questions, polite feedback/issues, PRs, etc are all welcome! Even just additional testing would be great too as I only use this on my GNOME/Fedora machine, and mostly while playing Deadlock.