# Swayr is a window switcher (and more) for sway
[](https://builds.sr.ht/~tsdh/swayr?)
[](https://crates.io/crates/swayr)
[](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html)
[](https://deps.rs/repo/sourcehut/~tsdh/swayr)
[](https://hitsofcode.com/sourcehut/~tsdh/swayr/view?branch=main)
Swayr consists of a demon, and a client. The demon `swayrd` records
window/workspace creations, deletions, and focus changes using sway's JSON IPC
interface. The client `swayr` offers subcommands, see `swayr --help`, and
sends them to the demon which executes them.
Right now, there are these subcommands:
* `switch-to-urgent-or-lru-window` switches to the next window with urgency
hint (if any) or to the last recently used window.
* `switch-window` displays all windows in the order urgent first, then
last-recently-used, focused last and focuses the selected.
* `switch-workspace` displays all workspaces in LRU order and switches to the
selected one.
* `switch-output` shows all outputs in the menu and focuses the selected one.
* `switch-workspace-or-window` displays all workspaces and their windows and
switches to the selected workspace or window.
* `switch-workspace-container-or-window` shows workspaces, containers, and
their windows in the menu program and switches to the selected one.
* `switch-to` shows outputs, workspaces, containers, and their windows in the
menu program and switches to the selected one.
* `quit-window` displays all windows and quits the selected one. An optional
`--kill` / `-k` flag may be specified in which case the window's process will
be killed using `kill -9 <pid>` rather than only sending a `kill` IPC message
to sway.
* `quit-workspace-or-window` displays all workspaces and their windows and
allows to quit either the selected workspace (all its windows) or the
selected window.
* `quit-workspace-container-or-window` shows workspaces, containers, and their
windows and quits all windows of the selected workspace/container or the
selected window.
* `move-focused-to-workspace` moves the currently focused window or container
to another workspace selected with the menu program. Non-matching input of
the form `#w:<workspace>` where the hash and `w:` shortcut are optional can
be used to move it to a new workspace.
* `move-focused-to` moves the currently focused container or window to the
selected output, workspace, container, window. Non-matching input is handled
like with `move-focused-to-workspace`.
* `swap-focused-with` swaps the currently focused window or container with the
one selected from the menu program.
* `next-window (all-workspaces|current-workspace)` & `prev-window
(all-workspaces|current-workspace)` focus the next/previous window in
depth-first iteration order of the tree. The argument `all-workspaces` or
`current-workspace` define if all windows of all workspaces or only those of
the current workspace are considered.
* `next-tiled-window` & `prev-tiled-window` do the same as `next-window` &
`prev-window` but switch only between windows contained in a tiled container.
* `next-tabbed-or-stacked-window` & `prev-tabbed-or-stacked-window` do the same
as `next-window` & `prev-window` but switch only between windows contained in
a tabbed or stacked container.
* `next-floating-window` & `prev-floating-window` do the same as `next-window`
& `prev-window` but switch only between floating windows.
* `next-window-of-same-layout` & `prev-window-of-same-layout` is like
`next-floating-window` / `prev-floating-window` if the current window is
floating, it is like `next-tabbed-or-stacked-window` /
`prev-tabbed-or-stacked-window` if the current window is in a tabbed or
stacked container, it is like `next-tiled-window` / `prev-tiled-window` if
the current windows is in a tiled container, and is like `next-window` /
`prev-window` otherwise.
* `tile-workspace exclude-floating|include-floating` tiles all windows on the
current workspace (excluding or including floating ones). That's done by
moving all windows away to some special workspace, setting the current
workspace to `splith` layout, and then moving the windows back. If the
`auto_tile` feature is used, see the Configuration section below, it'll
change from splitting horizontally to vertically during re-insertion.
* `shuffle-tile-workspace exclude-floating|include-floating` shuffles & tiles
all windows on the current workspace. The shuffle part means that (a) the
windows are shuffled before re-insertion, and (b) a randomly chosen already
re-inserted window is focused before re-inserting another window. So while
`tile-workspace` on a typical horizontally oriented screen and 5 windows will
usually result in a layout with one window on the left and all four others
tiled vertially on the right, `shuffle-tile-workspace` in combination with
`auto_tile` usually results in a more balanced layout, i.e., 2 windows tiled
vertically on the right and the other 4 tiled vertially on the left. If you
have less than a handful of windows, just repeat `shuffle-tile-workspace` a
few times until happenstance creates the layout you wanted.
* `tab-workspace exclude-floating|include-floating` puts all windows of the
current workspace into a tabbed container.
* `toggle-tab-shuffle-tile-workspace exclude-floating|include-floating` toggles
between a tabbed and tiled layout, i.e., it calls `shuffle-tile-workspace` if
it is currently tabbed, and calls `shuffle-tile-workspace` if it is currently
tiled.
* `configure-outputs` lets you repeatedly issue output configuration commands
until you abort the menu program.
* `execute-swaymsg-command` displays most swaymsg which don't require
additional input and executes the selected one. That's handy especially for
less often used commands not bound to a key. Non-matching input will be
executed executed as-is with `swaymsg`.
* `execute-swayr-command` displays all commands above and executes the selected
one. (This is useful for accessing swayr commands which are not bound to a
key.)
### Menu shortcuts for non-matching input
All menu switching commands (`switch-window`, `switch-workspace`, and
`switch-workspace-or-window`) now handle non-matching input instead of doing
nothing. The input should start with any number of `#` (in order to be able to
force a non-match), a shortcut followed by a colon, and some string as required
by the shortcut. The following shortcuts are supported.
- `w:<workspace>`: Switches to a possibly non-existing workspace.
`<workspace>` must be a digit, a name or `<digit>:<name>`. The
`<digit>:<name>` format is explained in `man 5 sway`. If that format is
given, `swayr` will create the workspace using `workspace number
<digit>:<name>`. If just a digit or name is given, the `number` argument is
not used.
- `s:<cmd>`: Executes the sway command `<cmd>` using `swaymsg`.
- Any other input is assumed to be a workspace name and thus handled as
`w:<input>` would do.
## Screenshots
## Installation
Some distros have packaged swayr so that you can install it using your distro's
package manager. Alternatively, it's easy to build and install it yourself
using `cargo`.
### Distro packages
The following GNU/Linux and BSD distros package swayr. Thanks a lot to the
respective package maintainers! Refer to the [repology
site](https://repology.org/project/swayr/versions) for details.
[](https://repology.org/project/swayr/versions)
[](https://repology.org/project/swayr/versions)
### Building with cargo
You'll need to install the current stable rust toolchain using the one-liner
shown at the [official rust installation
page](https://www.rust-lang.org/tools/install).
Then you can install swayr like so:
```sh
cargo install swayr
```
For getting updates easily, I recommend the cargo `install-update` plugin.
```sh
# Install it once.
cargo install install-update
# Then you can update all installed rust binary crates including swayr using:
cargo install-update --all
# If you only want to update swayr, you can do so using:
cargo install-update -- swayr
```
## Usage
You need to start the swayr demon `swayrd` in your sway config
(`~/.config/sway/config`) like so:
```
exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 swayrd > /tmp/swayrd.log 2>&1
```
The setting of `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` and the redirection of the output to some
logfile is optional but helps a lot when something doesn't work. Especially,
if you encounter a crash in certain situations and you want to report a bug, it
would be utmost helpful if you could reproduce the issue with backtrace and
logging and attach that to your bug report.
Next to starting the demon, you want to bind swayr commands to some keys like
so:
```
bindsym $mod+Space exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr switch-window >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
bindsym $mod+Delete exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr quit-window > /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
bindsym $mod+Tab exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr switch-to-urgent-or-lru-window >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
bindsym $mod+Next exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr next-window all-workspaces >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&2
bindsym $mod+Prior exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr prev-window all-workspaces >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&2
bindsym $mod+Shift+Space exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr switch-workspace-or-window >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
bindsym $mod+c exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr execute-swaymsg-command >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
bindsym $mod+Shift+c exec env RUST_BACKTRACE=1 \
swayr execute-swayr-command >> /tmp/swayr.log 2>&1
```
Of course, configure the keys to your liking. Again, enabling rust backtraces
and logging are optional.
## Configuration
Swayr can be configured using the `~/.config/swayr/config.toml` or
`/etc/xdg/swayr/config.toml` config file.
If no config files exists, a simple default configuration will be created on the
first invocation for use with the [wofi](https://todo.sr.ht/~scoopta/wofi)
menu program.
It should be easy to adapt that default config for usage with other menu
programs such as [dmenu](https://tools.suckless.org/dmenu/),
[bemenu](https://github.com/Cloudef/bemenu),
[rofi](https://github.com/davatorium/rofi), a script spawning a terminal with
[fzf](https://github.com/junegunn/fzf), or whatever. The only requirement is
that the launcher needs to be able to read the items to choose from from stdin
and spit out the selected item to stdout.
The default config looks like this:
```toml
[menu]
executable = 'wofi'
args = [
'--show=dmenu',
'--allow-markup',
'--allow-images',
'--insensitive',
'--cache-file=/dev/null',
'--parse-search',
'--height=40%',
'--prompt={prompt}',
]
[format]
output_format = '{indent}<b>Output {name}</b> <span alpha=\"20000\">({id})</span>'
workspace_format = '{indent}<b>Workspace {name} [{layout}]</b> <span alpha="20000">({id})</span>'
container_format = '{indent}<b>Container [{layout}]</b> on workspace {workspace_name} <i>{marks}</i> <span alpha="20000">({id})</span>'
window_format = 'img:{app_icon}:text:{indent}<i>{app_name}</i> — {urgency_start}<b>“{title}”</b>{urgency_end} on workspace {workspace_name} <i>{marks}</i> <span alpha="20000">({id})</span>'
indent = ' '
urgency_start = '<span background="darkred" foreground="yellow">'
urgency_end = '</span>'
html_escape = true
icon_dirs = [
'/usr/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps',
'/usr/share/icons/hicolor/64x64/apps',
'/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps',
'/usr/share/icons/Adwaita/64x64/apps',
'/usr/share/icons/Adwaita/48x48/apps',
'/usr/share/pixmaps',
]
[layout]
auto_tile = false
auto_tile_min_window_width_per_output_width = [
[1024, 500],
[1280, 600],
[1400, 680],
[1440, 700],
[1600, 780],
[1920, 920],
[2560, 1000],
[3440, 1000],
[4096, 1200],
]
```
In the following, all sections are explained.
### The menu section
In the `[menu]` section, you can specify the menu program using the
`executable` name or full path and the `args` (flags and options) it should get
passed. If some argument contains the placeholder `{prompt}`, it is replaced
with a prompt such as "Switch to window" depending on context.
### The format section
In the `[format]` section, format strings are specified defining how selection
choices are to be layed out. `wofi` supports [pango
markup](https://docs.gtk.org/Pango/pango_markup.html) which makes it possible
to style the text using HTML and CSS. The following formats are supported
right now.
* `output_format` defines how outputs (monitors) are displayed in the menu
program, `workspace_format` defines how workspaces are displayed,
`container_format` defines how non-workspace containers are displayed, and
`window_format` defines how application windows are displayed.
* In these formats, the following placeholders can be used:
* `{name}` gets replaced by the output name, the workspace number or name or
a window's title. The placeholder `{title}` is an obsolete synonym which
will be removed in a later version.
* `{layout}` shows the workspace or container's layout.
* `{id}` gets replaced by the sway-internal con id.
* `{indent}` gets replaced with N times the new `format.indent` value where N
is the depth in the shown menu input.
* `{app_name}` gets replaced with a window's application name.
* `{marks}` shows a comma-separated list of the container's or window's
marks.
* `{app_icon}` shows the application's icon (a path to a PNG or SVG file).
* `{workspace_name}` gets replaced with the name or number of the workspace
the container or window belongs to.
* The placeholders `{urgency_start}` and `{urgency_end}` get replaced by the
empty string if the window has no urgency flag and with the values of the
same-named formats if the window has the urgency flag set. That makes it
possible to highlight urgent windows as shown in the default config.
* `indent` is a string which is repeatedly inserted at the `{indent}`
placeholder in formats.
* `html_escape` defines if the strings replacing the placeholders above (except
for `{urgency_start}` and `{urgency_end}`) should be HTML-escaped.
* `urgency_start` is a string which replaces the `{urgency_start}` placeholder
in `window_format`.
* `urgency_end` is a string which replaces the `{urgency_end}` placeholder in
`window_format`.
* `icon_dirs` is a vector of directories in which to look for application icons
in order to compute the `{app_icon}` replacement.
* `fallback_icon` is a path to some PNG/SVG icon which will be used as
`{app_icon}` if no application-specific icon can be determined.
All the placeholders except `{app_icon}`, `{indent}`, `{urgency_start}`, and
`{urgency_end}` may optionally provide a format string as specified by
[Rust's std::fmt](https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/fmt/). The syntax is
`{<placeholder>:<fmt_str><clipped_str>}`. For example, `{app_name:{:>10.10}}`
would mean that the application name is printed with exactly 10 characters. If
it's shorter, it will be right-aligned (the `>`) and padded with spaces, if
it's longer, it'll be cut after the 10th character. Another example,
`{app_name:{:.10}...}` would mean that the application name is truncated at 10
characters. If it's shorter, it will be printed as-is (no padding), if it's
longer, it'll be cut after the 10th character and the last 3 characters of that
substring will be replaced with `...` (`<clipped_str>`).
It is crucial that during selection (using wofi or some other menu program)
each window has a different display string. Therefore, it is highly
recommended to include the `{id}` placeholder at least in `container_format`
and `window_format`. Otherwise, e.g., two vertical splits on the same
workspace or two terminals (of the same terminal app) with the same working
directory (and therefore, the same title) wouldn't be distinguishable.
**Hint for wofi**: `wofi` supports icons with the syntax
`'img:<image-file>:text:<text>'`, so a suitable `window_format` with
application icon should start with `img:{app_icon}:text:`.
**Hint for rofi**: `rofi` supports icons with the syntax
`"<text>\u0000icon\u00001f<image-file>"`, so a suitable `window_format` with
application icon should end with `"\u0000icon\u001f<image-file>"`. Also note
that you must enclose your `window_format` value with double-quotes and not
with single-quotes. Singe-quote strings are literal strings in
[TOML](https://toml.io/en/v1.0.0#string) where no escape-sequences are
processed whereas for double-quoted strings (so-called basic strings)
escape-sequences are processed. `rofi` requires a null character and a
PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR for image sequences.
### The layout section
In the `[layout]` section, you can enable auto-tiling by setting `auto_tile` to
`true` (the default is `false`). The option
`auto_tile_min_window_width_per_output_width` defines the minimum width in
pixels which your windows should have per output width. For example, the
example setting above says that on an output which is 1600 pixels wide, each
window should have at least a width of 780 pixels, thus there may be at most
two side-by-side windows (Caution, include your borders and gaps in your
calculation!). There will be no auto-tiling doesn't include your output's
exact width.
If `auto_tile` is enabled, swayr will automatically split either vertically or
horizontally according to this algorithm:
- For all outputs:
+ For all (nested) containers on that output (except the scratchpad):
- For all child windows of that container:
+ If the container is split horizontally and creating another window
would make the current child window smaller than the minimum width,
execute `split vertical` (the `swaymsg` command over IPC) on the child.
+ Else if the container is split vertically and now there is enough space
so that creating another window would still leave the current child
window above or equal to the minimum width, call `split horizontal` on
the child.
+ Otherwise, do nothing for this container. This means that stacked or
tabbed containers will never be affected by auto-tiling.
There is one caveat: it would be nice to also trigger auto-tiling when windows
or containers are resized but unfortunately, resizing doesn't issue any events
over IPC. Therefore, auto-tiling is triggered by new-window events,
close-events, move-events, floating-events, and also focus-events. The latter
are a workaround and wouldn't be required if there were resize-events.
## Version Changes
Since version 0.8.0, I've started writing a [NEWS](NEWS.md) file listing the
news, and changes to `swayr` commands or configuration options. If something
doesn't seem to work as expected after an update, please consult this file to
check if there has been some (possibly incompatible) change requiring an update
of your config.
## Questions & Patches
For asking questions, sending feedback, or patches, refer to [my public inbox
(mailinglist)](https://lists.sr.ht/~tsdh/public-inbox). Please mention the
project you are referring to in the subject.
## Bugs
Bugs and requests can be reported [here](https://todo.sr.ht/~tsdh/swayr).
## Build status
[](https://builds.sr.ht/~tsdh/swayr?)
## License
Swayr is licensed under the
[GPLv3](https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html) (or later).