lavalauncher(1)

🦋 lavalauncher(1) — General Commands Manual, bestie edition 🦋

✨ NAME ✨

LavaLauncher — A simple launcher panel for Wayland desktops. 🫶

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

Okay so LavaLauncher is a simple launcher panel for Wayland desktops. It displays a dynamically sized bar with user defined buttons. These Buttons consist of an image, which is displayed as the button icon on the bar, and at least one shell command, which is executed when the user activates the button.

Buttons can be activated with pointer and touch events. ✨

A single LavaLauncher instance can provide multiple such bars, across multiple outputs. 👑

The Wayland compositor must implement the Layer-Shell and XDG-Output for LavaLauncher to work.

Beware: Unlike applications launchers which are similar in visual design to LavaLauncher, which are often called "docks", LavaLauncher does not care about desktop files or icon themes nor does it keep track running applications. Instead, LavaLaunchers approach of manually defined buttons is considerably more flexible: You could have buttons not just for launching applications, but for practically anything you could do in your shell, like for ejecting your optical drive, rotating your screen, sending your cat an email, playing a funny sound, muting all audio, toggling your lamps and a lot more. Be creative! 🌈

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -c <path>, --config <path> — Path to the configuration file.
• -h, --help — Display a helpful help message and exit.
• -v, --verbose — Enable verbose output.
• -V, --version — Show version.

🌸 CONFIGURATION 🌸

LavaLauncher is configured with a configuration file.

Unless the path to a configuration file has been specified, LavaLauncher tries to find a configuration file at, in descending priority, "./lavalauncher.conf", "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf", "$HOME/.config/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf", "/usr/local/etc/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf" and "/etc/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf".

You can find an example configuration at the end of this section.

🧚 STRUCTURE 🧚

The configuration file has a simple structure. It consists of contexts and assignments.

Assignments are always inside context and have the following form.

<variable> = <value>;

Note that the value may be quoted, causing LavaLauncher to use it as is, including all whitespace that would otherwise be stripped from the final string.

Contexts have the following form.

<context name>
{
     <context content>
}

Some Contexts must be nested as contents of other contexts.

Comments start with an octothorpe ('#').

🦋 GLOBAL SETTINGS 🦋

Global settings can be configured in the "global-settings" context. The assignments which can be made in this context are as follows.

• watch-config-file — Automatically reload when a change in the configuration file is detected. Can be "true" or "false". The default is "false". Behold: If the configuration file contains an error upon reload, LavaLauncher will exit. 💀

💅 BAR 💅

Every "bar" context will add a bar. The configuration changes in this context make up the default configuration set of the bar. The assignments possible in this context are as follows.

• alignment — Alignment of the buttons / bar. Can be "start", "center" or "end". The default is "center".
• background-colour — The background colour of the bar. The default is "#000000".
• border-colour — The border colour of the bar. The default is "#ffffff".
• border — The border size. Expects either one integer, to set the size of all borders, or four integers, to set the individual sizes for the top, left, right and bottom border. The default border size is 1.
• condition-resolution — The resolution proportions an output must have for the bar to be displayed on it. Can be either "all", "wider-than-high" or "higher-than-wide". The default is "all".
• condition-scale — The scale an output must have for the bar to be displayed on it. Can be either an integer greater than zero or "all". The default is "all".
• condition-transform — The rotation an output must have for the bar to be displayed on it. Can be "all", 0, 1, 2 or 3. The numerical values represent rotations of 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees, with the exact correspondence depending on the compositor. The default is "all".
• cursor-name — Name of the cursor displayed when hovering the pointer over the bar. The default cursor is "pointer". Behold: What cursors are available depends on your cursor theme. 👀
• exclusive-zone — Exclusive zone of the surface. Can be "true", "false" or "stationary".
  • If "true", the compositor is informed that it should not obstruct the surface of LavaLauncher with other surfaces.
  • If "false", the compositor is informed that it can place other surfaces over or under the surface of LavaLauncher.
  • If "stationary", the compositor is informed that the surface of LavaLauncher should not be moved to accommodate other Layer-Shell surfaces and that it can freely place other surfaces over or under the surface of LavaLauncher.
  • The default is "true". The exact implementation is compositor dependant; A compositor may choose to ignore the requested exclusive zone of surfaces.
• hidden-mode — Hidden mode of the bar. Can be "never", "always" and "river-auto". Defaults to "never".
  • In "never" mode, the bar is never hidden.
  • In "always" mode, the bar is always hidden.
  • The "river-auto" mode works only in the river Wayland compositor. In this mode, the bar is only hidden if the output is currently occupied.
  • Behold: If you want a hidden bar which sits above windows on hover, you need to set the layer to "top" and the exclusive zone to "off" or "stationary". 🫣
• hidden-size — Size of the invisible area where hovering with a pointer will unhide the bar if it is hidden. Defaults to 10.
• icon-padding — Padding around the icons. The default 4.
• indicator-active-colour — The colour of the indicator for icons being activated. The default is "#606060".
• indicator-hover-colour — The colour of the indicator for icons over which the cursor hovers. The default is "#404040".
• indicator-padding — Padding around the icon indicator. The default 0.
• indicator-style — Style of the icon indicator. Can be "rectangle", "rounded-rectangle" and "circle". The default is "rounded-rectangle". The corner radii for "rounded-rectangle" are the same as the ones of the bar itself.
• layer — Layer of the bar surface. Can be "overlay", "top", "bottom" or "background". Typically, "bottom" and "background" will be underneath regular windows, while "top" and "overlay" will be above them, however the exact placement on the z axis depends on the implementation of the compositor. The default layer is "bottom".
• margin — The margin of the surface. Expects either one integer, to set the margin in all directions, or four integers, to set the individual top-, left-, right- and bottom-margins. The default margin is 0.
• mode — The display mode of the bar. Can be "default", "full" or "aggressive".
  • In "default" mode, the bar is sized just large enough to house all the buttons. In this mode, compositors may not respect margins parallel to the bar or the exclusive zone, possibly even depending on the alignment. This is not a bug in LavaLauncher but a limitation of your compositor.
  • In "full" mode, the bar spans the entire length of the edge it is docked to.
  • The "aggressive" mode is visually identical to "normal" mode, however the surface of the bar is sized and anchored more aggressively. This mode is intended for compositors with faulty Layer-Shell implementations. If LavaLauncher is not placed at the desired location or the exclusive zone or margins parallel to the bar are ignored, this mode may help. Beware however that it allows the compositor a lot less leeway when geometrically fitting the bar onto the screen. 😭
• namespace — The namespace of the Layer-Shell surface of the bar. Some compositors may treat Layer-Shell surfaces differently based on their namespace. The default is "lhp.LavaLauncher". Note that this option only takes effect once on bar creation.
• output — Name of the output on which the bar should be displayed. Output names are compositor dependant. If set to "all" or "*", LavaLauncher will display the bar on all outputs, which is the default behaviour.
• position — Position of the bar. Can be "top", "right", "bottom", "left". The bar will dock to that edge of the output(s). The default position is "bottom".
• radius — The radius of the corners. Expects either one integer, to set the radius of all corners, or four integers, to set the individual radii for the top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right corner. The default radius is 5. Set to 0 to disable corner roundness.
• size — Size of the bar. The default size is 60.

🦋 CONFIG 🦋

Every "config" context will add an additional configuration set to a bar. As such, this context is a nested inside the "bar" context. It copies the values of the default configuration set, but every setting can be overridden. This is useful to change bar configuration based on conditionals, as LavaLauncher will automatically choose the first configuration set with fitting conditions. Different instances of the same bar on different outputs can use different configuration sets, but a bar has at most one instance per output and uses exactly one configuration set per instance. The assignments possible in this context are the same as for the "bar" context.

👑 BUTTON 👑

Every "button" context will add a button to a bar. As such, this context is a nested inside the "bar" context. The assignments possible in this context are as follows.

• command — Sets the shell command for left-, right-, middle-click and touch interactions.
• command[<bind>] — Bind a shell command to a specific interaction plus modifier combination. This combination is defined by <bind>, which is a string containing an interaction name as well as optionally one or multiple modifier names, separated by "+".

The possible interaction types are the following.

• mouse-{left, right, middle}
• mouse-{forward, backward}
• mouse-{mouse, side, extra, task, misc}
• mouse-{1 - 9}
• scroll-{up, down}
• touch

The possible modifiers are the following.

• alt
• capslock
• control
• logo (super)
• numlock
• shift

Behold: okay so because of how Layer-Shell's keyboard interactivity was designed, LavaLauncher might only get an updated modifier state when it gains keyboard focus. 😭 In some compositors that means you have to click it first, which can make touch and scroll interactions with modifiers not work in those compositors. This is a bug in the Layer-Shell protocol, not in LavaLauncher. 💀

image-path — the path to an image file, and LavaLauncher uses it as the icon of the button. 🖼️

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✨ SPACER ✨

Every spacer context adds a spacer to a bar, so this context is nested inside the bar context. The assignments you can use here are:

• length — length of the spacer.

💻 COMMANDS 💻

Commands are executed using sh(1). 🐚

LavaLauncher understands typical backslash escape sequences.

LavaLauncher sets some environment variables for the processes it launches. Since all commands are executed via a shell, you can use these as arguments for the commands. The variables are:

• $LAVALAUNCHER_OUTPUT_NAME — the name of the output the button has been clicked on.
• $LAVALAUNCHER_OUTPUT_SCALE — the scale of the output the button has been clicked on.

🌈 COLOURS 🌈

LavaLauncher can parse hex code colours and read RGB values directly. The supported formats are #RRGGBB, #RRGGBBAA, 0xRRGGBB, 0xRRGGBBAA for hex code colours, and rgb(rrr,ggg,bbb) and rgba(rrr,ggg,bbb,aaa) for RGB colours. 🎨

🌀 CONDITIONS 🌀

Conditions get (re-)evaluated whenever an output's parameters are updated. That's also when bars get created or destroyed, and when the active configuration set gets chosen accordingly. 🌀

🖼️ IMAGES 🖼️

LavaLauncher supports PNG images and, if enabled at compile time, SVG images too. It is recommended to use square images. 🟦

🎀 EXAMPLE CONFIGURATION 🎀

This is a simple configuration example, demonstrating a bar with two buttons and an additional configuration set. The second button uses advanced command binds. 🎀

global-settings
{
     watch-config-file = true;
}

bar
{
     output            = eDP-1;
     position          = bottom;
     background-colour = "#202020";

     # Condition for the default configuration set.
     condition-resolution = wider-than-high;

     config
     {
          # Condition for this configuration set.
          condition-resolution = higher-than-wide;

          # Additional configuration sets copy the default configuration set,
          # but settings can be overwritten.
          position = left;
     }

     button
     {
          image-path = /path/to/image.png;
          command    = useful-script.sh;
     }

     button
     {
          image-path = /path/to/another/image.png;

          command[mouse-left]  = another-useful-script.sh;
          command[mouse-right] = another-useful-script.sh;

          command[shift+mouse-left]     = another-useful-script.sh;
          command[shift+alt+mouse-left] = another-useful-script.sh;

          # Binding commands to scroll events is nice to configure
          # things like audio volume or screen brightness
          command[scroll-up]         = volume up;
          command[scroll-down]       = volume down;
          command[shift+scroll-up]   = volume microphone-up;
          command[shift+scroll-down] = volume microphone-down;
     }
}

🐛 BUGS 🐛

Probably. 🙈

Please report all bugs you find with an explanation how to reproduce them.

💌 MAILINGLIST 💌

You can send bug reports, patches and feedback to the mailinglist.

<~leon_plickat/lavalauncher@lists.sr.ht>

🌿 GIT 🌿

This project is developed using git. You can find the repository by visiting the following URL.

<https://git.sr.ht/~leon_plickat/lavalauncher>

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Leon Henrik Plickat <leonhenrik.plickat@stud.uni-goettingen.de>

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✨ That's the whole manual, bestie! This page is the lavalauncher(1) manual, dated 2025-05-09. Now go slay your bar setup. 💅💖