Sway

USE flags

Emerge

Files

Each user running sway can edit the default configuration file in order to run a customized sway session. Gentoo stores this file at its default /etc/sway/config location:

Terminal emulator

By default the Sway configuration file uses the Alacritty terminal emulator (found in the x11-terms/alacritty package). It is a good idea to emerge this terminal emulator so that a terminal will be available once Sway is running:

Another popular choice is x11-terms/kitty which works natively with Wayland if the KITTY_ENABLE_WAYLAND environment variable is set to 1.

Another very lightweight alternative is st, but it isn't Wayland native.

Status bar

In addition to Sway's own status bar, gui-apps/waybar can be used as a highly customizable status bar for Sway.

Brightness

dev-libs/light can be used to adjust backlights and brightness. Here is an example config:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec light -U 2
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec light -A 4</syntaxhighlight>

Alternatively, sys-power/acpilight can also accomplish the same brightness changes via a xbacklight compatible command:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">bindsym XF86MonBrightnessDown exec xbacklight -dec 2
bindsym XF86MonBrightnessUp exec xbacklight -inc 4</syntaxhighlight>

Sound volume

If pulseaudio is being used, the following configuration can be used for changing sound volume:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">bindsym XF86AudioRaiseVolume exec pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ +5%
bindsym XF86AudioLowerVolume exec pactl set-sink-volume @DEFAULT_SINK@ -5%</syntaxhighlight>

Taking screenshots

To add screenshot support, use the grim utility (found in the gui-apps/grim package). The abbreviation grim is defined as Grab Images. This utility is tailored to the specifics of the Wayland protocol. In order to install grim, use the following command:

To add support for determining the boundaries of the selected screen area, the slurp utility, found in the gui-apps/slurp package, is used in combination with the grim utility. To install slurp, use the command:

Next, edit the configuration file to add support for keyboard shortcuts to perform a screenshot operation.

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#
# Screen capture
#
set $ps1 Print
set $ps2 Control+Print
set $ps3 Alt+Print
set $ps4 Alt+Control+Print
 
bindsym $ps1 exec grim - | wl-copy
bindsym $ps2 exec grim -g "$(slurp)" - | wl-copy
bindsym $ps3 exec grim $(xdg-user-dir PICTURES)/ps_$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S").png
bindsym $ps4 exec grim -g "$(slurp)" $(xdg-user-dir PICTURES)/ps_$(date +"%Y%m%d%H%M%S").png</syntaxhighlight>

Please note that the Print or Ctrl + Print keys combination creates a screenshot in the wl-copy buffer. This allows pasting the image directly from the clipboard, without having to save to a file on disk.

For the Alt + Print or Alt + Ctrl + Print keyboard shortcuts, the method of automatically saving the image file in the Pictures user directory is used.

Set a random wallpaper

A random wallpaper can be pulled from a folder and be set: ^[1]

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">set $wallpapers_path $HOME/Pictures/Wallpapers
output * bg $(find $wallpapers_path -type f | shuf -n 1) fill</syntaxhighlight>

HiDPI

To adjust sway's rendering for HiDPI displays (4K and above), the name of the display to be adjusted must be obtained. After a sway session is running, issue the following:

The output statement in the sway configuration file will accept a scale parameter to adjust the scaling of the high resolution display.

Launching Sway from a script

This method uses a script to forcibly take over a virtual terminal and launch Sway in it. The typical use case is to launch Sway automatically on boot.

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#!/bin/sh

# Launch sway with a specific user, from a specific Virtual Terminal (vt)
# Two arguments are expected: a username (e.g., larry) and the id of a free vt (e.g., 7)

# prepare the tty for the user. vtX uses /dev/ttyX
chown "$1" "/dev/tty${2}"
chmod 600 "/dev/tty${2}"

# setup a clean environment for the user, take over the target vt, then launch sway
su --login --command "openvt --switch --console ${2} -- sway >\${HOME}/.sway_autolauncher.log 2>&1" "$1"
# this script returns immediately</syntaxhighlight>

This script has a few limitations:

• XDG_RUNTIME_DIR is expected to be defined and valid, see the section above.
• Without the --switch option for openvt, sway will freeze when trying to switch to a different vt (Ctrl+Alt+Fn), whether this is a bug or not is unknown.
• The vt is not cleared when Sway exits, you can do it by calling deallocvt.
• Similarly the tty's owner and mode are not changed back to their default values when Sway exits.

Launching this script on boot can be done with the local service:

<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">#!/bin/sh
sway_launcher larry 7</syntaxhighlight>

Movement

Sway has a Vi-like interface. h (left), j (down), k (up), and l (right) can be used for movement.

See man 5 sway-input for more information.

Terminal

The default key combination to open a terminal emulator is $mod+Enter.

Failed to connect to user bus

[swaybar/tray/tray.c:42] Failed to connect to user bus: No such file or directory 

• Forum topic [swaybar/tray/tray.c:42] Failed to connect to user bus: No such file or directory => Use dbus-run-session sway
• Forum topic sway(bar) with tray support
• https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/1415

Warning: no icon themes loaded

[swaybar/tray/icon.c:348] Warning: no icon themes loaded

It is looking for x11-themes/hicolor-icon-theme