The Pill

All pill states explained

Idle, recording, transcribing, LLM, done, error. Each one has a unique shape, colour, and animation.

Every state of the dictation pipeline maps to a distinct pill state. Once you've used Dimmy for a day you read the pill without thinking.

The six pill states side-by-side: idle, recording, transcribing, LLM, done, error

State	Visual	Meaning
Idle	Small capsule, dim border	Waiting for the hotkey.
Recording	Expanded pill, rainbow border, live waveform	Capturing audio. Bars move with your voice.
Transcribing	Dots or spinner, solid border	Running STT, local or cloud.
LLM processing	Style-coloured border, style icon	Post-processing with the active style.
Done	Green checkmark, brief	Text was pasted into the focused app.
Error	Red border, tooltip	Something failed. Hover for the reason.

Live waveform

While recording, the pill expands and shows a real-time volume meter built from the same audio that goes to the transcriber. If you see no bars moving, your microphone is silent or muted at the OS level.

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Recording the same phrase three times with different volume levels, watching the waveform respond

Style icon

During LLM processing, the icon inside the pill switches to the active style (a pencil for Correct, a sparkle for Elaborate, and so on). Tells you at a glance which style will be applied.

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In this category

The Pill

What the pill is

The small always-on-top overlay. It shows whether Dimmy is idle, recording, transcribing, or done.

The Pill

Move, resize, hide the pill

Drag the pill anywhere. Pin to a corner. Change opacity when idle. Hide it entirely until the hotkey is pressed.

The Pill

Tray and menu-bar icon

Besides the pill, Dimmy puts a tiny icon in your system tray (Windows, Linux) or menu bar (macOS). Quick access to Settings, History, Quit.

Last updated: 2026-05-22