driftwm-settings

Complete GUI settings manager for driftwm compositor.

Features

• 🎨 Native GTK4 interface with sidebar navigation
• ⚙️ All driftwm settings - 15+ configuration pages covering every option
• 💾 Live editing - changes update config structure in real-time
• 🔄 Hot reload support - driftwm automatically reloads config on save
• 📝 TOML format - reads/writes ~/.config/driftwm/config.toml
• 🎭 Interactive Shader Editor - create custom animated backgrounds with visual controls
• 🪟 Window Rules - per-app blur, opacity, and decoration settings

Settings Pages

1. General

• Modifier key (super/alt)
• Focus follows mouse

2. Keyboard

• Layout, variant, options, model
• Repeat rate and delay
• Layout independent keybindings
• Num Lock and Caps Lock startup state

3. Trackpad

• Tap to click, natural scroll, tap and drag
• Acceleration speed and profile
• Click method

4. Mouse

• Acceleration speed and profile
• Natural scroll

5. Cursor

• Theme and size
• Inactive opacity

6. Navigation

• Trackpad and mouse speed
• Friction and animation speed
• Nudge and pan step
• Edge pan settings

7. Zoom

• Zoom step multiplier
• Fit padding
• Reset on new window/activation

8. Snap

• Enable/disable snapping
• Gap, distance, break force
• Same edge snapping

9. Decorations

• Background and foreground colors
• Corner radius

10. Effects

• Blur radius (0-20 passes) and strength (0.1-5.0)
• 6 blur presets: None, Light, Default, Medium, Strong, Extreme

11. Window Rules

• Per-app blur, opacity, decoration settings
• Match by app_id and/or title (glob support)
• Widget mode (pinned windows)
• Dynamic add/remove rules

12. Backend

• Wait for frame completion
• Disable direct scanout
• NVIDIA environment variables guide

13. Background

• Shader path (GLSL)
• Tile path (PNG/JPG)
• Quick access to Shader Editor

14. Shader Editor ✨ NEW

• Visual Mode: Interactive controls for colors, animation, effects
  • 3 shader templates: Gradient, Animated Waves, Clouds
  • RGB color pickers for primary and secondary colors
  • Animation speed, pattern scale, complexity controls
  • Vignette and glow effects
• Raw Mode: Full GLSL code editor for advanced users
• Generate and save custom shaders
• Apply directly to background

15. Keybindings

• Custom keyboard shortcuts
• Add/remove bindings dynamically

16. Autostart

• Multi-line editor for startup commands

Installation

Requirements

• GTK4
• Rust 1.85+ (edition 2024)

Build from source

cd ~/driftwmsettings
cargo build --release

Install system-wide

sudo make install

This installs:

• Binary to /usr/local/bin/driftwm-settings
• Desktop entry to /usr/local/share/applications/

Uninstall

sudo make uninstall

Usage

Launch from terminal

driftwm-settings

Launch from application menu

Search for "driftwm Settings" in your application launcher.

Development

cargo run

Project Structure

driftwmsettings/
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs           # UI and page implementations
│   ├── config.rs         # TOML config structures
│   ├── config_helpers.rs # Config initialization helpers
│   ├── ui_helpers.rs     # UI widget helpers
│   └── shader_editor.rs  # Interactive shader editor
├── Cargo.toml
├── Makefile
├── README.md
└── driftwm-settings.desktop

Configuration

The app reads and writes to:

~/.config/driftwm/config.toml

Changes are saved when you click the "Save" button. driftwm will automatically reload the config within 1 second (hot reload).

Custom shaders are saved to:

~/.config/driftwm/custom_shader.glsl

Recent Changes

v0.2.1

• 🐛 Bug Fix: Fixed an issue where persistent and excessive scrollbars appeared by allowing the content area to dynamically resize based on the active page instead of keeping the maximum height of the tallest page.

v0.2.0

New Features

• ✨ Interactive Shader Editor with Visual/Raw modes
• 🪟 Window Rules page for per-app settings
• 🎨 Enhanced blur controls with 6 presets
• 📏 Better window sizing - reduced default size to 900x650
• 🔄 Scroll reset - pages always start from top when switching
• 🔤 Clearer labels - "Layout independent keybindings" with tooltip

Config Updates

• Added num_lock and caps_lock keyboard settings
• Added reset_on_new_window and reset_on_activation zoom settings
• Removed force_legacy_drm (now uses SMITHAY_USE_LEGACY=1 env var)

Bug Fixes

• Fixed scroll state persisting between sections (#1)
• Fixed default layout being too wide (#2)
• Improved "Layout independent" label clarity (#3)

Screenshots

(Coming soon)

Development

Adding new settings

1. Add field to appropriate struct in src/config.rs
2. Add UI widget in corresponding add_*_page() function in src/main.rs
3. Connect widget signal to update config

Code style

• Use create_row() for horizontal layouts
• Use add_label() for consistent label width
• Use ensure_*() helpers to initialize nested config structs
• Follow existing patterns for Switch, Entry, and SpinButton widgets

License

GPL-3.0-or-later (same as driftwm)

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please read CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

• Fork the repository
• Create a feature branch
• Make your changes
• Run tests: cargo fmt, cargo clippy, cargo build
• Submit a pull request

See also: Code of Conduct

For upstream driftwm, see malbiruk/driftwm.

Credits

• Built for driftwm by malbiruk
• GUI implementation by wwmaxik