sehn - Simple, Minimal Camera Viewer

sehn is a light-weight, configurable V4L2 camera viewer and capture tool for X11. It is inspired by feh and follows the same philosophy: no toolkits, no bloat, do one thing well.

sehn opens a frameless window showing a live viewfinder feed from a V4L2 camera device. A minimal panel provides capture, mode switching, and a settings menu. Everything is configurable via TOML config files and command-line options.

Features include photo capture, video recording, burst mode, audio capture, customizable keybindings, theme support, and EXIF metadata injection.

Dependencies

• libX11, libXext, libXft
• cairo
• libjpeg, libpng
• libv4l2
• libavcodec, libavformat, libavutil, libswscale, libswresample (FFmpeg)
• libpulse, libpulse-simple
• tomlc99 (bundled subproject fallback)

Optional:

• libexif (EXIF metadata)
• libcurl (MJPEG network streams - not yet implemented)

Build Process

sehn uses the Meson build system.

meson setup build --prefix=/usr
meson compile -C build
sudo meson install -C build

The default prefix is /usr, so the desktop file, icon, and fonts are installed to the correct system paths. Use --prefix=/usr/local or omit it for a local install.

Build Options

Compile-time optional features are reported in the version output:

sehn --version

Configuration

sehn reads its configuration from $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sehn/sehnrc.toml (defaulting to ~/.config/sehn/sehnrc.toml).

Additional config files:

• ~/.config/sehn/themes.toml - Named theme presets
• ~/.config/sehn/keys.toml - Custom key bindings
• ~/.config/sehn/buttons.toml - Mouse button bindings

Generate a config file from current settings:

sehn --print-config > ~/.config/sehn/sehnrc.toml

Usage

sehn                          # Open default camera (/dev/video0)
sehn --list-devices           # List all V4L2 cameras
sehn -d /dev/video1 -r 1280x720 -R 60   # Specific device/resolution/FPS
sehn -F --no-panel            # Fullscreen, keyboard-only
sehn -m video --video-format mp4        # Start in video mode
sehn -T studio                # Load a theme

See the sehn(1) manual page for full documentation:

man sehn

Contributing

Bug reports and feature requests are welcome via GitHub issues.

License

MIT License. See source distribution for full text.

sehn is inspired by feh by Tom Gilbert and Birte Friesel.