nwg-launchers

As it's never too late to learn something new, I decided to try and code my sgtk-menu set of launchers, written in python, from scratch in C++. It went not bad, thanks to the help from Contributors - more experienced C++ developers.

It's damned difficult to make all the stuff behave properly on all window managers. My priorities are:

1. it must work well on sway;
2. it should work as well as possible on Wayfire, i3, dwm and Openbox.

Feel free to report issues you encounter on other window managers / desktop environments, but they may or may not be resolved.

Packages

The latest released version is available in Arch User Repository. Current development version (master branch) may be installed as the nwg-launchers-git AUR package. For other Linux distributions see the table below.

Building and installing

To build nwg-launchers from source, you need a copy of the source code, which can be obtained by cloning the repository or by downloading and unpacking the latest release.

Dependencies

• gtkmm3 (libgtkmm-3.0-dev)
• nlohmann-json - optional, can be downloaded as a subproject
• meson and ninja - build dependencies

Building

This project uses the Meson build system for building and installing the executables and the necessary data. The options that can be passed to the meson command can be found in the meson_options.txt file, and can be used to disable building some of the available programs.

$ git clone https://github.com/nwg-piotr/nwg-launchers.git
$ cd nwg-launchers
$ meson builddir -Dbuildtype=release
$ ninja -C builddir

Installation

To install:

$ sudo ninja -C builddir install

To uninstall:

$ sudo ninja -C builddir uninstall

Note: the descriptions below apply to the master branch. Certain features may or may not be available in the latest release, as well as in the current package for your Linux distribution.

nwggrid

This command creates a GNOME-like application grid, with the search box, optionally prepended with a row of -f favourites (most frequently used apps) or -p pinned program icons.

This only works with the -p argument:

• to pin up a program icon, right click its icon in the applications grid;
• to unpin a program, right click its icon in the pinned programs grid.

Hit "Delete" key to clear the search box.

Usage

$ nwggrid -h
GTK application grid: nwggrid 0.4.1 (c) 2020 Piotr Miller, Sergey Smirnykh & Contributors

Options:
-h               show this help message and exit
-f               display favourites (most used entries); does not work with -d
-p               display pinned entries; does not work with -d
-d               look for .desktop files in custom paths (-d '/my/path1:/my/another path:/third/path')
-o <opacity>     default (black) background opacity (0.0 - 1.0, default 0.9)
-b <background>  background colour in RRGGBB or RRGGBBAA format (RRGGBBAA alpha overrides <opacity>)
-n <col>         number of grid columns (default: 6)
-s <size>        button image size (default: 72)
-c <name>        css file name (default: style.css)
-l <ln>          force use of <ln> language
-wm <wmname>     window manager name (if can not be detected)

Terminal applications

.desktop files with the Terminal=true line should be started in a terminal emulator. There's no common method to determine which terminal to use. The nwggrid command since v0.4.1 at the first run will look for installed terminals in the following order: alacritty, kitty, urxvt, foot, lxterminal, sakura, st, termite, terminator, xfce4-terminal, gnome-terminal. The name of the first one found will be saved to the ~/.config/nwg-launchers/nwggrid/terminal file. If none of above is found, the fallback xterm value will be saved, regardless of whether xterm is installed or not. You may edit the term file to use another terminal.

Custom background

Use -b | argument (w/o #) to define custom background colour. If alpha value given, it overrides the opacity, as well default, as defined with the -o argument.

Custom styling

On first run the program creates the nwg-launchers/nwggrid folder in your .config directory. You'll find the style.css files inside. You may edit the style sheet to your liking.

nwgbar

This command creates a horizontal or vertical button bar, out of a template file.

Usage

$ nwgbar -h
GTK button bar: nwgbar 0.4.1 (c) Piotr Miller & Contributors 2020

Options:
-h               show this help message and exit
-v               arrange buttons vertically
-ha <l>|<r>      horizontal alignment left/right (default: center)
-va <t>|<b>      vertical alignment top/bottom (default: middle)
-t <name>        template file name (default: bar.json)
-c <name>        css file name (default: style.css)
-o <opacity>     background opacity (0.0 - 1.0, default 0.9)
-b <background>  background colour in RRGGBB or RRGGBBAA format (RRGGBBAA alpha overrides <opacity>)
-s <size>        button image size (default: 72)
-wm <wmname>     window manager name (if can not be detected)

Custom background

Use -b | argument (w/o #) to define custom background colour. If alpha value given, it overrides the opacity, as well default, as defined with the -o argument.

Customization

On first run the program creates the nwg-launchers/nwgbar folder in your .config directory. You'll find a sample template bar.json and the style.css files inside.

Templates use json format. The default one defines an example Exit menu for sway window manager on Arch Linux:

[
  {
    "name": "Lock screen",
    "exec": "swaylock -f -c 000000",
    "icon": "system-lock-screen"
  },
  {
    "name": "Logout",
    "exec": "swaymsg exit",
    "icon": "system-log-out"
  },
  {
    "name": "Reboot",
    "exec": "systemctl reboot",
    "icon": "system-reboot"
  },
  {
    "name": "Shutdown",
    "exec": "systemctl -i poweroff",
    "icon": "system-shutdown"
  }
]

To set a keyboard shortcut (using Alt+KEY) for an entry, you can add an underscore before the letter you want to use. Example to set s as the shortcut:

[
...
  {
    "name": "Lock _screen",
    "exec": "swaylock -f -c 000000",
    "icon": "system-lock-screen"
  }
...
]

Note for underscore ("_")

If you want to use an underscore in the name, you have to double it ("__").

Wayfire note

For the Logout button, as in the bar above, you may use wayland-logout by @soreau.

You may use as many templates as you need, with the -t argument. All of them must be placed in the config directory. You may use own icon files instead of icon names, like /path/to/the/file/my_icon.svg.

The style sheet makes the buttons look similar to nwggrid. You can customize them as well.

nwgdmenu

This program provides 2 commands:

• <input> | nwgdmenu - displays newline-separated stdin input as a GTK menu
• nwgdmenu - creates a GTK menu out of commands found in $PATH

Hit "Delete" to clear the search box. Hit "Insert" to switch case sensitivity.

Usage

$ nwgdmenu -h
GTK dynamic menu: nwgdmenu 0.4.1 (c) Piotr Miller & Contributors 2020

<input> | nwgdmenu - displays newline-separated stdin input as a GTK menu
nwgdmenu - creates a GTK menu out of commands found in $PATH

Options:
-h               show this help message and exit
-n               no search box
-ha <l>|<r>      horizontal alignment left/right (default: center)
-va <t>|<b>      vertical alignment top/bottom (default: middle)
-r <rows>        number of rows (default: 20)
-c <name>        css file name (default: style.css)
-o <opacity>     background opacity (0.0 - 1.0, default 0.3)
-b <background>  background colour in RRGGBB or RRGGBBAA format (RRGGBBAA alpha overrides <opacity>)
-wm <wmname>     window manager name (if can not be detected)
-run             ignore stdin, always build from commands in $PATH(1)

Hotkeys:
Delete        clear search box
Insert        switch case sensitivity

(1) The program should auto-detect if something has been passed in stdin, and build the menu out of the stdin content or from commands found in $PATH accordingly. However, in some specific cases (e.g. if you use gdm and start nwgdmenu from a key binding) the stdin content detection may be false-positive, which results in displaying an empty menu. In such case use the nwgdmenu -run instead, to force building the menu out of commands in $PATH.

Notice: if you start your WM from a script (w/o DM), only sway and i3 will be auto-detected. You may need to pass the WM name as the argument:

nwgdmenu -wm dwm

The generic name tiling will be accepted as well.

Custom background

Use -b | argument (w/o #) to define custom background colour. If alpha value given, it overrides the opacity, as well default, as defined with the -o argument.

Custom styling

On first run the program creates the nwg-launchers/nwgdmenu folder in your .config directory. You'll find the default style.css files inside. Use it to adjust styling and a vertical margin to the menu, if needed.

i3 note

In case you use default window borders, an exclusion like this may be necessary:

for_window [title="~nwg"] border none

Openbox Note

To start nwgdmenu from a key binding, use the -run argument, e.g.:

<keybind key="W-D">
  <action name="Execute">
    <command>nwgdmenu -run</command>
  </action>
</keybind>

Tips & tricks

Hide unwanted icons in nwggrid

See: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/desktop_entries#Hide_desktop_entries