glance

A file clipboard for Wayland — watches directories for new files and shows a transient widget in Waybar. Click to open a dropdown menu with actions: drag-and-drop, open, edit, or copy the path.

What's new in 0.3.0

• Filename in menu — the dropdown now shows the filename alongside the thumbnail and file size
• Editor supports arguments — set editor = "gimp -n" or any command with flags in your config
• Scroll direction fixed — scroll up goes to newer files, scroll down to older
• Copy respects scroll selection — right-click copy now works on whichever file you've scrolled to
• Proper cleanup — menu no longer leaves orphaned lock/pid files after dismissal
• File locking on state — concurrent access to history state is now safe under flock
• Fix: waybar polling interval — changed from "interval": 1 (spawned 3600 processes/hr) to "interval": "once", relying on signal-based updates instead
• Fix: shared lock for reads — read_history() now uses a shared lock (LOCK_SH) instead of exclusive, preventing lock contention when waybar polls status

Dependencies

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell wl-clipboard swappy

Fedora:

sudo dnf install gtk4-devel gtk4-layer-shell-devel wl-clipboard swappy

You also need a Rust toolchain and Hyprland (uses hyprctl for overlay placement).

swappy is a lightweight Wayland screenshot annotation tool used by the Edit button. If not installed, glance will fall back to opening files with your default app. You can also set a different editor in the config.

Install

From crates.io:

cargo install wayglance

On Fedora, you may need to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH first:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/lib64/pkgconfig cargo install wayglance

From source:

git clone https://github.com/areofyl/glance
cd glance
cargo build --release
cp target/release/glance ~/.local/bin/

Then run the setup wizard:

glance init

This automatically:

• Creates the default config at ~/.config/glance/config.toml
• Adds the Waybar module to your Waybar config
• Appends CSS styles to your Waybar style.css
• Adds exec-once = glance watch and SUPER+V keybind to your Hyprland config

Restart Waybar and you're done.

Autostart

Add to your Hyprland config (~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf):

exec-once = glance watch
bind = SUPER, V, exec, glance drag

Waybar module

Add to your Waybar config (~/.config/waybar/config.jsonc):

"custom/glance": {
    "exec": "glance status",
    "return-type": "json",
    "interval": 0,
    "signal": 8,
    "on-click": "glance menu",
    "on-click-right": "glance copy",
    "on-scroll-up": "glance scroll up",
    "on-scroll-down": "glance scroll down"
}

Then add "custom/glance" to your bar layout (e.g. modules-right). A complete snippet is in waybar-module.jsonc.

Waybar styling

Add to your Waybar CSS (~/.config/waybar/style.css):

#custom-glance {
    padding: 0 8px;
    color: #cdd6f4;
}

#custom-glance.active {
    color: #a6e3a1;
}

#custom-glance.empty {
    padding: 0;
}

Config

Optional. Copy config.example.toml to ~/.config/glance/config.toml and edit to taste. Everything has sane defaults.

# directories to watch for new files
watch_dirs = ["~/Pictures/Screenshots", "~/Downloads"]

# RTMIN+N signal to poke waybar
signal_number = 8

# auto-dismiss the waybar widget after N seconds
dismiss_seconds = 10

# skip partial downloads etc.
ignore_suffixes = [".part", ".crdownload", ".tmp"]

# waybar bar height in px (for menu placement)
bar_height = 57

# number of files to remember in history
history_size = 5

# editor command for the Edit button (default: "swappy -f")
# supports full commands with arguments, e.g. "gimp -n" or "swappy -f"
editor = "swappy -f"

# which buttons to show in the dropdown
actions = ["drag", "open", "edit", "copy"]

# auto-dismiss the dropdown after N seconds (0 = never)
menu_dismiss_seconds = 8

# customize menu appearance
[menu_style]
background = "rgba(30,30,46,0.95)"
text_color = "#cdd6f4"
secondary_color = "#a6adc8"
button_background = "rgba(255,255,255,0.08)"
button_hover = "rgba(255,255,255,0.15)"
border_radius = 12

Commands

glance init            # set up config, waybar module, CSS, and autostart
glance watch           # run the inotify watcher (long-running)
glance status          # JSON for waybar (called by exec)
glance menu            # dropdown menu below waybar with actions
glance copy            # wl-copy the selected file path
glance drag            # drag-and-drop overlay at cursor
glance scroll up|down  # navigate through file history

License

MIT