Sunrise Sunset Time Widget

WHAT IT DOES

Sunrise Sunset Time Widget places a compact, always-visible floating widget on your screen that displays the exact sunrise and sunset times for your current geographic location. The widget automatically detects your position and fetches real-time solar data from a free public API, presenting it in a clean, glanceable format. A dynamic day/night indicator visually shifts between golden and dark tones depending on the time of day, while a countdown timer shows the precise minutes and hours remaining until the next sunrise or sunset event. A prominent status badge clearly indicates whether it is currently day or night in your location and provides an at-a-glance countdown to the next transition.

WHERE IT RUNS

This widget operates as a standalone overlay on any modern operating system that supports floating application windows, including Windows, macOS, and Linux desktop environments. It runs natively without requiring a browser, providing system-level persistence and low resource consumption. The widget stays on top of other windows by default, ensuring you never miss the information, but can be configured to behave as a standard window when preferred.

HOW TO USE

Upon first launch, the widget requests location permissions to determine your coordinates. Once granted, it immediately queries the public API and displays your local sunrise and sunset times. The widget can be dragged to any position on your screen by clicking and holding the top edge. It includes a snap-to-edge feature that automatically aligns the widget to the nearest screen border when released near it. Click the collapse button to minimize the widget to a compact pill-shaped indicator showing only the current sun status and countdown; click it again to expand. Resize the widget by dragging its bottom-right corner to make the information larger or smaller according to your preference. Press the Escape key at any time to close the widget entirely.

THE MECHANISM THAT MAKES IT WORK

Unlike other widgets that rely on coarse timezone-based approximations, this application uses the NOAA Solar Calculator methodology to compute precise solar zenith angles based on your exact latitude and longitude. It applies the Spencer formula for solar declination and the equation of time to determine the true solar noon, then calculates the hour angle at sunrise and sunset using the standard atmospheric refraction correction of -0.833 degrees. This produces sunrise and sunset times accurate to within seconds, not minutes. The widget caches the day's solar data locally and only refreshes the API call once per hour to minimize bandwidth, while the countdown timer updates in real-time using the device's system clock and the cached solar event timestamps.

THE PANEL

The widget panel features a clean, unobtrusive design with a dark semi-transparent background for optimal readability against any desktop wallpaper. Drag the widget anywhere on your screen using the title bar area. When you drag the widget near any screen edge, it automatically snaps into place with a smooth animation. The collapse button reduces the widget to a narrow bar displaying only the sun status icon and the countdown to the next event, taking up minimal screen space. The resize handle at the bottom-right corner lets you scale the entire widget from 120px to 400px wide, with all text and graphics adjusting proportionally. Pressing the Escape key instantly dismisses the widget, and it can be relaunched from your system tray or applications menu.

PLEASE NOTE

This widget requires the free BotGentz extension to be installed and activated on your system, as it provides the necessary overlay rendering engine and API communication layer. The extension is available for download from the official BotGentz repository. Since public solar APIs and web services occasionally change their endpoints or response formats, the widget's data fetching scripts may require periodic updates to maintain compatibility. Updates are delivered automatically through the extension's update channel. This application does not store, transmit, or share your location data with any third-party servers beyond the public API request; all location processing happens locally on your device, and no user data is logged or persisted.