hikari - Man Page

Views are basically the windows of a Wayland client. Each view belongs to at most one sheet and can also belong to at most one group. A view can be in several states.

• hidden

  Hidden views are not displayed on the workspace. Hiding a view removes this view from the workspace.

• tiled

  A tiled view is part of a layout. They can never be floating or invisible.

• floating

  Floating views can never become part of a layout. The floating state is indicated using a tilde in the sheet indicator.

• invisible

  When a view is set into invisible state it will not be displayed when switching to the containing sheet and stay hidden until it is explicitly requested to be shown. This can be used to keep long running views from cluttering the workspace. An invisible view can never be tiled and are indicated using square brackets in the sheet indicator.

• maximized (horizontal, vertical and full)

  Views with such a state can take up the entire horizontal and or vertical space of a workspace. Tiled views can also be maximized.

• borrowed

  Borrowing happens when a workspace contains a view that view that is not part of the current sheet. These views are called borrowed views and are indicated by the sheet indicator using the string “x @ y”, where x is the sheet the view is a member of and y is the sheet that is currently borrowing the view.

• public

  Public views are also displayed on the lock screen, in this case they will never accept input. Views that display sensible information should never be marked as public. The public state is indicated using an exclamation mark in the sheet indicator.

A workspace is the set of views that are currently visible. Unlike in most other Wayland compositors, hikari only has a single workspace for each output and we only manipulate its content using actions. While this seems like a superficial distinction it is important to keep in mind for some actions to make sense. When switching to a sheet this sheet becomes the workspace sheet. On startup a workspace sheet is 1. Views on a workspace are stacked from bottom to top, where the next view is higher up the stack and the previous view is one below. This order can be changed by raising or lowering views individually via actions. Selecting a view via cycling actions automatically raises this view to the top of the stacking order.

hikari provides multiple ways to cycle the views on a workspace. Cycling is a way to navigate to a view using key bindings.

A sheet is a collection of views, each view can only be a member of a single sheet. Switching between sheets will replace the current content of the workspace with all the views that are a member of the selected sheet, this sheet will also become the current sheet. hikari has 9 general purpose sheets that correspond to the numbers 1 to 9 and a special purpose sheet 0. Views that are a member of sheet 0 will always be visible but stacked below the views of the selected sheet. A sheet that contains views is called inhabited.

When switching to a different sheet the current current sheet becomes the alternate sheet.

Groups are a bit more fine grained than sheets. Like sheets, groups are a collection of views. Unlike sheets you can have a arbitrary number of groups and each group can have an arbitrary name. Views from one group can be spread among all available sheets. Some actions act on entire groups rather than individual views.

Each sheet can have at most one layout for tiling views. Applying a layout to a sheet introduces an additional ordering for views which is not altered by raising or lowering, which can be used to traverse the layout in the expected order. Each layout can be stored in one of the layout register a to z.

View indicators show information about the current view as well as views belonging to the same group. They outline the border of the current view as well as all view borders belonging to the same group (obscured view borders will shine through the obscuring view). The focused view will also display so called indicator bars. Each bar holds some information, like title, sheet information, group and its mark (if one has been set for the view).

Marks can be used to “speed dial” views, even if they are on a sheet other than the current sheet (note: such views will become borrowed in the process). Marks are represented by characters from a to z. When jumping to a mark the view will be brought forward and focused. If no view is bound to a mark the user can specify a command that is executed instead. This can be used to start an application that binds itself to this mark.

hikari is a modal Wayland compositor and therefore offers several modes for actions like changing a views group, mark or sheet as well a jumping to marks or grabbing input events and layout selection.

hikari supports the use of environment variables in its string values. Occurrences of ${VARIABLE} or $VARIABLE inside a string will be substituted with the value of an environment variable named VARIABLE. If no such environment variable exists, no substituation takes place.

You can use double dollar signs to escape variables: $${VARIABLE} will result in ${VARIABLE}, $$VARIABLE will result in $VARIABLE.

• lock

  Lock hikari and turn off all outputs. To unlock you need to enter your password and press enter. Being able to unlock requires hikari-unlocker to be in the PATH and running with setuid(2) root privileges (those are required to check if the entered password is correct). hikari-unlocker also needs pam.conf(5) to be aware of its existence, therefore there must be a hikari-unlocker service file in pam.d.

  The lock screen displays all views that are marked as public which allows applications to provide information to the user when the computer is locked (e.g. a clock).

• quit

  Issues a quit operation to all views, allowing them to prompt their shutdown dialog if they have any. Issuing this operation again during shutdown will terminate hikari right away.

• reload

  Reload and apply the configuration.

• group-cycle-[next|prev]

  Cycle to the next or previous group according to the stacking order by cycling through the top most view of each group. The next view is further up the stack and the previous view is further down the stack. Reaching each end of the stack just wraps around. Once a view is selected it will be raised to the top of the stacking order. Selecting happens by releasing the modifier key.

• group-cycle-view-[next|prev|first|last]

  Cycle through all visible views inside of a group. Once a view is selected it will be raised to the top of the stacking order. Selecting happens by releasing the modifier key.

• group-hide

  Hides all visible views of the group of the focused view.

• group-lower

  Lowers all visible views of the group of the focused view.

• group-only

  Hides all visible views not belonging to the group of the focused view.

• group-raise

  Raises all visible views of the group of the focused view.

• layout-apply-[a-z]

  Applies the layout in the according register to the current workspace sheet. If the register happens to be empty this is a no-op. If the view that currently has focus can be tiled and is not borrowed it will get raised to the top of the stack.

• layout-cycle-view-[next|prev|first|last]

  Cycle to the next or previous group according to the layout order. Once a view is selected it will be raised to the top of the stacking order, the layout order will remain unchanged.

• layout-exchange-view-[next|prev|main]

  Swaps the focused view with the next, previous or main view in the layout order.

• layout-reset

  Resets the geometry of all views in the current layout.

• layout-restack-[append|prepend]

  Adds non-floating sheet views to an existing layout without changing layout order of already tiled views. If no layout is present the default layout for the current sheet is applied.

• mark-show-[a-z]

  Shows the view bound to the according mark. If no view is bound to the mark an optional command for this mark can be executed, if none is specified this action is a no-op.

• mark-switch-to-[a-z]

  Switches to the workspace containing the view bound to the according mark. If no view is bound to the mark an optional command for this mark can be executed, if none is specified this action is a no-op.

• mode-enter-group-assign

  Entering group-assign-mode allows the user to change the group of the currently focused view. Groups that do no exist yet get created. Groups that become empty get destroyed.

• mode-enter-input-grab

  Redirect all input events directly to the focused view without the compositor interfering. Focus will not leave this view anymore until the mode exits or the view closes. To exit this mode, reissue the same key binding that started this mode.

• mode-enter-layout

  Layout selection awaits one of the layout registers to be selected. Valid registers range from a to z and 0 to 9. ESC cancels this mode without selecting a layout. If the layout register happens to be empty this action is a no-op. If the view that currently has focus can be tiled and is not borrowed it will get raised to the top of the stack.

• mode-enter-mark-assign

  To change the mark of a view enter mark assign mode and select a mark between a and z. This mode turns the mark indicator bar into an input field. The selection is finalized by pressing Enter or canceled by pressing ESC. If a mark has already been taken the conflicting window will be indicated.

• mode-enter-mark-select

  Mark selection allows to bring forward a view bound to a mark by selecting that mark. When entering this mode hikari awaits the name of the mark to be issued. If that mark is bound to a view that view is shown, in the case that this view is not a member of the current sheet it is considered borrowed. If no view is bound to this mark and the mark has been configured to execute a command when empty, this command gets executed.

• mode-enter-mark-switch-select

  This action works just like mode-enter-mark-select with the exception that is switches to the workspace of the bound view. If the mark is not bound it stays on the same workspace.

• mode-enter-move

  Moving around views with a pointer device is what this mode is for. Once entered the pointer will jump to the top left corner of the focused view and start moving the view around with the pointer. When releasing any key this mode is canceled automatically.

• mode-enter-resize

  Resizing around views with a pointer device is what this mode is for. Once entered the pointer will join to the bottom right corner of the focused view and start resizing the view with the pointer. When releasing any key this mode is canceled automatically.

• mode-enter-sheet-assign

  Entering this mode lets the user change the sheet of a view by pressing the number of the target sheet. If multiple outputs are available they can be cycled using TAB.

• sheet-show-all

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all views that are a member of its current sheet. This includes invisible views as well.

• sheet-show-group

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all views that are a member of its current sheet and the group of the focused view. This includes invisible views as well.

• sheet-show-invisible

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all invisible views that are a member of its current sheet.

• view-cycle-[next|prev]

  Cycle through all visible views. The next view is further up the stack and the previous view is further down the stack. Reaching each end of the stack just wraps around. Once a view is selected it will be raised to the top of the stacking order. Selecting happens by releasing the modifier key.

• view-decrease-size-[up|down|left|right]

  Decreases the size of the focused view by the amount of pixels set as step value into the given direction

• view-hide

  Hides the focused view.

• view-increase-size-[up|down|left|right]

  Increases the size of the focused view by the amount of pixels set as step value into the given direction

• view-lower

  Lowers the focused view to the bottom of the stacking order.

• view-move-[up|down|left|right]

  Moves the focused view step pixels into the given direction.

• view-move-[center[|-left|-right]|[bottom|top]-[left|middle|right]]

  Moves the focused view to the given position on the output.

• view-only

  Hides every other view except the focused one.

• view-pin-to-sheet-[0-9|alternate|current]

  Pins the focused view to a given sheet. If the sheet is not currently a current sheet or sheet 0 the view becomes hidden. Pinning a view to the current sheet makes sense for borrowed views which takes this view from its original view and pin it to the current one.

• view-quit

  Closes the focused view.

• view-raise

  Raises the view to the top of the stacking order.

• view-reset-geometry

  Resetting view geometry brings a view back to its original size and position. This means that maximization will be undone and the view will also be taken out of a layout if it has been a part of one before.

• view-snap-[up|down|left|right]

  Snap the focused view into the specified direction. Views can snap to the edge of the screen as well as to the borders of neighboring views (in this case the gap setting is respected).

• view-toggle-floating

  Toggles the floating state of the focused view. Floating views can not be part of a layout. If a view that is already tiled is set to floating state it will be taken out of the layout and reset its geometry.

• view-toggle-invisible

  Toggles the invisible state of the focused view. A view in invisible state is not displayed if a user switches to the sheet containing this view. They need to be shown explicitly, either by using marks or by issuing actions showing views in this state. Iconified views can not be part of a layout. If a view that is already tiled is set to invisible state it will be taken out of the layout and reset its geometry.

• view-toggle-maximize-[full|horizontal|vertical]

  Maximizes the focused view in the given direction. Maximization state complement each other so maximizing a view horizontally and then vertically adds up to a full maximization state and so on.

• view-toggle-public

  Toggles the public state of the focused view. Public views are also displayed on the lock screen (note: they do not accept any input when the screen is locked though). These views should only contain information that should be displayed when the screen is locked, such as clocks or the progress of a long running process, they should never contain sensitive information. The public state is indicated in the sheet indicator bar via !.

• vt-switch-to-[1-9]

  Switches to another virtual terminal.

• workspace-clear

  Clears the current workspace.

• workspace-cycle-[next|prev]

  Cycle through available workspaces selecting the view that had focus last. If that view is no longer visible the first view of the current sheet of that workspace is selected . In both cases the cursor gets centered on that view. If the current sheet is empty this moves the cursor into the center of the target workspace.

• workspace-show-all

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all views. This includes invisible views.

• workspace-show-group

  Raises the focused view, clears the current workspace and populates it with all views that are a member of the group of the focused view. This includes invisible views.

• workspace-show-invisible

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all invisible views that belong to that workspace.

• workspace-switch-to-sheet-[0-9|alternate|current]

  Clears the current workspace and populates it with all views that are a member of the specified sheet. This action also sets the current sheet of the workspace to this very sheet. Views that are a member of sheet 0 will also be displayed on the bottom of the stacking order. Switching to the current sheet will reset the state of the sheet e.g. hiding borrowed views, showing views that have previously been hidden and hiding views that are in invisible state.

• workspace-switch-to-sheet-[next|prev]-inhabited

  Switch to the next or previous sheet (excluding 00) that contains at least one member. If none exists is a no-op. This action also sets the current sheet of the workspace to this sheet.

A layout subdivides the screen space using splits. Dividing up the screen space uses a binary space partitioning approach. One can split a region of space horizontally or vertically into to new regions which can contain either another split or a container with a tiling algorithm.

To split up the screen vertically into two equally sized section one has to specify when the left and right hand side of the split should contain.

{
  left = ...
  right = ...
}

Respectively to split horizontally you have to specify top and bottom.

Notice that the order in which you specify left, right, top and bottom is important, since it defined the orientation of the split. The side of the split that gets specified first is the part the gets filled first when tiling a sheet, it becomes the dominant part of the split.

Sometimes splitting a region of space should not result in equally sized subdivisions and the dominant part of the split should be scaled up or down. This can be done by specifying the scale attribute which can vary between 0.1 to 0.9, if no scale is specified this value defaults to 0.5.

To horizontally split a region on space where the top portion of the split should take up 75% would be specified like so:

{
  scale = 0.75
  top = ...
  bottom = ...
}

Additionally to setting a fixed scale value, hikari allows to specify a scale object with min and max values. This is called dynamic scaling, and it uses the size of the first view inside the container to determine the size of the entire container. The min and max values are used to specify possible minimum and maximum scale values for the container. Omitting the values for min or max sets the former to 0.1 and the latter to 0.9.

{
  scale = {
    min = 0.5
    max = 0.75
  }
  left = single
  right = stack
}

Containers consume a number of views and arrange them according to a tiling algorithm. There are 6 different tiling algorithms that you can assign to a container.

• empty

  This is one of the simplest algorithms, it does not consume any views. This is used if a user desired to have a container of a layout to remain empty e.g. preventing the layout to cover up a portion of the workspace.

• single

  Containers using the single layout only consume one view which takes up the entire container.

• full

  Each view inside of a container using this algorithm will take up the entire size of the container. All of the views are stacked up on top of each other.

• stack

  The stack algorithm tries to give every view the container consumes an equal amount of vertical space (excess space is given to the first view). The order in which stacking works is from top to bottom.

• queue

  The queue algorithm tries to give every view the container consumes an equal amount of horizontal space (excess space is given to the first view). The order in which stacking works is from left to right.

• grid

  A grid tries to give each view the containers consumes an equal amount of horizontal and vertical space (excess space is given to the first view, and therefore first row of the grid). If the amount of views can not be split up into equal rows and column the last part of the grid will not be filled.

The easiest way to define a layout is by simply stating the tiling algorithm. Binding a fullscreen layout to the layout register f can be trivially achieved.

f = full

This layout does not subdivide the screen using splits in any way. The container takes up the entire screen space (respecting gap settings) and uses the full algorithm to arrange the views.

More complex layouts might demand that the user specifies the number of views that the container may contain up to a maximum. This can be achieved by specifying a container object.

To define a queue container that contains up to 4 views one would define it like that:

{
  views = 4
  layout = queue
}

Just stating the tiling algorithm is a short-hand for a layout object with where views is set to 256.

hikari uses color to indicate different states of views and their indicator bars. By specifying a colorscheme section the user can control these colors. A colorscheme is a number of properties that can be changed individually. Colors are specified using hexadecimal RGB values (e.g. 0xE6DB74).

• active

  Indicates view focus.

• background

  Specifies the background color. This will be obscured by a wallpaper

• conflict

  Conflicts can happen when the user attempts to overwrite something (e.g. binding a mark to a view that is already taken up by another view) or does something illegal (e.g. defining a new group with a leading digit in its name).

• first

  Signals that the indicated view is the topmost view of a group.

• foreground

  Font color for indicator bars.

• grouped

  Views that belong to the same group are indicated using this color.

• inactive

  Indicates that a view does not have focus.

• insert

  Indicates indicator bars that are in insert mode (e.g. assigning a view to a group) or views that have an input grab using mode-enter-input-grab.

• selected

  This color is used to indicate that a view is selected.

These are the default settings for the hikari colorscheme.

colorscheme {
  background = 0x282C34
  foreground = 0x000000
  selected   = 0xF5E094
  grouped    = 0xFDAF53
  first      = 0xB8E673
  conflict   = 0xED6B32
  insert     = 0xE3C3FA
  active     = 0xFFFFFF
  inactive   = 0x465457
}

Pointers can be configured in the pointers subsection. The following options are available.

• accel

  Sets mouse acceleration for the pointer device to a value between -1 and 1.

• accel-profile

  Sets mouse acceleration profile for the pointer device to the given mode. Valid values are none, flat and adaptive.

• disable-while-typing

  Enable or disable disable-while-typing if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

• middle-emulation

  Enable or disable middle click emulation if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

• natural-scrolling

  Enable or disable natural-scrolling if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

• scroll-button

  Configures the pointer scroll button. Valid values are right, middle, left, side, extra, forward, back and task.

• scroll-method

  Sets the pointers scroll method. Valid values are no-scroll, on-button-down.

• tap

  Enable or disable tap if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

• tap-drag

  Enable or disable tap-drag if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

• tap-drag-lock

  Enable or disable tap-drag-lock if available. This setting expects a boolean value.

Configuring the System mouse input device could look like this.

inputs {
  pointers {
    "System mouse" = {
      accel = 1.0
      scroll-method = on-button-down
      scroll-button = middle
    }
  }
}

A special name “*” is used to address all pointers. Values defined for this pseudo pointer override unconfigured values for any other pointer.

hikari is using xkb to configure its keyboards via the keyboards section. xkb rules can be set independently or via a file using the xkb attribute.

To specify rules individually one can use the following options. Refer to xkeyboard-config(7) for possible settings.

• rules

  Specifies the xkb rules. The default value is evdev.

• model

  Sets the keyboard model.

• layout

  Sets the keyboard layout.

• variant

  Sets the keyboard variant.

• options

  Sets keyboard options.

Additionally hikari can also configure key repeat using the following attributes.

• repeat-delay

  Takes a positive integer to specify the key repeat delay in milliseconds. The default value is 600.

• repeat-rate

  Takes a positive integer to specify the key repeat rate in Hz. The default value is 25.

Configuring the AT keyboard input device could look like this.

inputs {
  keyboards {
    "*" = {
      xkb = {
        layout = "de(nodeadkeys)"
        options = "caps:escape"
      }
      repeat-rate = 25
      repeat-delay = 600
    }
  }
}

A special name “*” is used to address all keyboards. Values defined for this pseudo keyboard override unconfigured values for any other pointer.

Keyboards can also be configured using XKB environment variables. hikari will automatically fall back to these settings if a keyboard is not explicitly configured.

• XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT
• XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL
• XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS
• XKB_DEFAULT_RULES

To specify a layout set XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT to the desired layout. This needs to happen before starting hikari.

XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT "de(nodeadkeys),de"

Switches can be configured in the switches subsection. A switch just takes an action and functions like a regular key binding using the name of the switch as an identifier. The begin action is triggered when turning the switch on and end is triggered when turning it off.

inputs {
  switches {
    "Control Method Lid Switch" = lock
  }
}