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Noctalia already had a Spotify search plugin.

It was almost perfect.

Almost.

I could open the launcher with Alt + Space, type /sp followed by a song name, and get matching results.

The only thing missing was album-cover caching.

Which sounds minor until you care too much about UI.

Without the covers loading properly, the feature worked, but it did not feel finished. So I fixed the caching.

Now I can open the launcher, search for a song, see the correct cover art, press Enter, and Spotify opens with the track already playing.

This is exactly the kind of unnecessary integration that makes a desktop feel personal.

It is also slightly absurd.

I still cannot get Spotify’s ugly blue title bar to match the rest of the theme.

The application itself refuses to blend in, but I can now summon any song from a perfectly themed launcher with its album artwork displayed correctly.

The difficult part was not making Spotify easier to use.

The difficult part remains convincing it not to look like a surviving component from Windows Vista.

I plan to extend the same launcher idea beyond music.

Anime, series, movies, YouTube, and anything else that makes sense to search without opening a browser first.

I will publish the code with light documentation.

A complete setup guide would probably be dishonest anyway. Linux desktops are too personal. Everyone has a different compositor, launcher, theme, package format, keybinding, and opinion about where configuration files should live.

The code can be shared.

The consequences are yours.

For now, the feature works exactly how I wanted.

Spotify still looks wrong.

But at least it now looks wrong more efficiently.