lavalauncher(1) General Commands Manual lavalauncher(1) NAME LavaLauncher - A simple launcher panel for Wayland desktops DESCRIPTION LavaLauncher is a simple launcher panel for Wayland desktops. It displays a dynamically sized bar with user defined buttons. These But- tons consist of an image, which is displayed as the button icon on the bar, and at least one shell command, which is executed when the user activates the button. Buttons can be activated with pointer and touch events. A single LavaLauncher instance can provide multiple such bars, across mul- tiple outputs. The Wayland compositor must implement the Layer-Shell and XDG-Output for LavaLauncher to work. Beware: Unlike applications launchers which are similar in visual design to LavaLauncher, which are often called "docks", LavaLauncher does not care about desktop files or icon themes nor does it keep track running applica- tions. Instead, LavaLaunchers approach of manually defined buttons is con- siderably more flexible: You could have buttons not just for launching ap- plications, but for practically anything you could do in your shell, like for ejecting your optical drive, rotating your screen, sending your cat an email, playing a funny sound, muting all audio, toggling your lamps and a lot more. Be creative! OPTIONS -c <path>, --config <path> Path to the configuration file. -h, --help Display a helpful help message and exit. -v, --verbose Enable verbose output. -V, --version Show version. CONFIGURATION LavaLauncher is configured with a configuration file. Unless the path to a configuration file has been specified, LavaLauncher tries to find a configuration file at, in descending priority, "./lavalauncher.conf", "$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf", "$HOME/.config/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf" "/usr/lo- cal/etc/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf" and "/etc/lavalauncher/lavalauncher.conf" You can find an example configuration at the end of this section. STRUCTURE The configuration file has a simple structure. It consists of contexts and assignments. Assignments are always inside context and have the following form. <variable> = <value>; Note that the value may be quoted, causing LavaLauncher to use it as is, including all whitespace that would otherwise be stripped from the final string. Contexts have the following form. <context name> { <context content> } Some Contexts must be nested as contents of other contexts. Comments start with an octothorpe ('#'). GLOBAL SETTINGS Global settings can be configured in the "global-settings" context. The as- signments which can be made in this context are as follows. watch-config-file Automatically reload when a change in the configuration file is de- tected. Can be "true" or "false". The default is "false". Behold: If the configuration file contains an error upon reload, LavaLauncher will exit. BAR Every "bar" context will add a bar. The configuration changes in this con- text make up the default configuration set of the bar. The assignments pos- sible in this context are as follows. alignment Alignment of the buttons / bar. Can be "start", "center" or "end". The default is "center". background-colour The background colour of the bar. The default is "#000000". border-colour The border colour of the bar. The default is "#ffffff". border The border size. Expects either one integer, to set the size of all borders, or four integers, to set the individual sizes for the top, left, right and bottom border. The default border size is 1. condition-resolution The resolution proportions an output must have for the bar to be dis- played on it. Can be either "all", "wider-than-high" or "higher-than- wide". The default is "all". condition-scale The scale an output must have for the bar to be displayed on it. Can be either an integer greater than zero or "all". The default is "all". condition-transform The rotation an output must have for the bar to be displayed on it. Can be "all", 0, 1, 2 or 3. The numerical values represent rotations of 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees, with the exact correspondence depending on the compositor. The default is "all". cursor-name Name of the cursor displayed when hovering the pointer over the bar. The default cursor is "pointer". Behold: What cursors are available de- pends on your cursor theme. exclusive-zone Exclusive zone of the surface. Can be "true", "false" or "stationary". If "true", the compositor is informed that it should not obstruct the surface of LavaLauncher with other surfaces. If "false", the compositor is informed that it can place other surfaces over or under the surface of LavaLauncher. If "stationary", the compositor is informed that the surface of LavaLauncher should not be moved to accommodate other Layer- Shell surfaces and that it can freely place other surfaces over or un- der the surface of LavaLauncher. The default is "true". The exact im- plementation is compositor dependant; A compositor may choose to ignore the requested exclusive zone of surfaces. hidden-mode Hidden mode of the bar. Can be "never", "always" and "river-auto". De- faults to "never". In "never" mode, the bar is never hidden. In "always" mode, the bar is always hidden. The "river-auto" mode works only in the river Wayland compositor. In this mode, the bar is only hidden if the output is currently occupied. Behold: If you want a hidden bar which sits above windows on hover, you need to set the layer to "top" and the exclusive zone to "off" or "sta- tionary". hidden-size Size of the invisible area where hovering with a pointer will unhide the bar if it is hidden. Defaults to 10. icon-padding Padding around the icons. The default 4. indicator-active-colour The colour of the indicator for icons being activated. The default is "#606060". indicator-hover-colour The colour of the indicator for icons over which the cursor hovers. The default is "#404040". indicator-padding Padding around the icon indicator. The default 0. indicator-style Style of the icon indicator. Can be "rectangle", "rounded-rectangle" and "circle". The default is "rounded-rectangle". The corner radii for "rounded-rectangle" are the same as the ones of the bar itself. layer Layer of the bar surface. Can be "overlay", "top", "bottom" or "back- ground". Typically, "bottom" and "background" will be underneath regu- lar windows, while "top" and "overlay" will be above them, however the exact placement on the z axis depends on the implementation of the com- positor. The default layer is "bottom". margin The margin of the surface. Expects either one integer, to set the mar- gin in all directions, or four integers, to set the individual top-, left-, right- and bottom-margins. The default margin is 0. mode The display mode of the bar. Can be "default", "full" or "aggressive". In "default" mode, the bar is sized just large enough to house all the buttons. In this mode, compositors may not respect margins parallel to the bar or the exclusive zone, possibly even depending on the align- ment. This is not a bug in LavaLauncher but a limitation of your com- positor. In "full" mode, the bar spans the entire length of the edge it is docked to. The "aggressive" mode is visually identical to "normal" mode, however the surface of the bar is sized and anchored more aggressively. This mode is intended for compositors with faulty Layer-Shell implementa- tions. If LavaLauncher is not placed at the desired location or the ex- clusive zone or margins parallel to the bar are ignored, this mode may help. Beware however that it allows the compositor a lot less leeway when geometrically fitting the bar onto the screen. namespace The namespace of the Layer-Shell surface of the bar. Some compositors may treat Layer-Shell surfaces differently based on their namespace. The default is "lhp.LavaLauncher". Note that this option only takes ef- fect once on bar creation. output Name of the output on which the bar should be displayed. Output names are compositor dependant. If set to "all" or "*", LavaLauncher will display the bar on all outputs, which is the default behaviour. position Position of the bar. Can be "top", "right", "bottom", "left". The bar will dock to that edge of the output(s). The default position is "bot- tom". radius The radius of the corners. Expects either one integer, to set the ra- dius of all corners, or four integers, to set the individual radii for the top-left, top-right, bottom-left and bottom-right corner. The de- fault radius is 5. Set to 0 to disable corner roundness. size Size of the bar. The default size is 60. CONFIG Every "config" context will add an additional configuration set to a bar. As such, this context is a nested inside the "bar" context. It copies the values of the default configuration set, but every setting can be overrid- den. This is useful to change bar configuration based on conditionals, as LavaLauncher will automatically choose the first configuration set with fitting conditions. Different instances of the same bar on different out- puts can use different configuration sets, but a bar has at most one in- stance per output and uses exactly one configuration set per instance. The assignments possible in this context are the same as for the "bar" context. BUTTON Every "button" context will add a button to a bar. As such, this context is a nested inside the "bar" context. The assignments possible in this context are as follows. command Sets the shell command for left-, right-, middle-click and touch inter- actions. command[<bind>] Bind a shell command to a specific interaction plus modifier combina- tion. This combination is defined by <bind>, which is a string contain- ing an interaction name as well as optionally one or multiple modifier names, separated by "+". The possible interaction types are the following. * mouse-{left, right, middle} * mouse-{forward, backward} * mouse-{mouse, side, extra, task, misc} * mouse-{1 - 9} * scroll-{up, down} * touch The possible modifiers are the following. * alt * capslock * control * logo (super) * numlock * shift Behold: Due to the way the Layer-Shells keyboard interactivity was de- signed, LavaLauncher may only get send an updated modifier state when it gains keyboard focus. In some compositors this requires you to click on it, meaning that touch and scroll interactions with modifiers may not work in some compositors. This is a bug in the Layer-Shell proto- col, not in LavaLauncher. image-path The path to an image file, which will be used as the icon of the but- ton. SPACER Every "spacer" context will add a spacer to a bar. As such, this context is a nested inside the "bar" context. The assignments possible in this context are as follows. length Length of the spacer. COMMANDS Commands are executed using sh(1). LavaLauncher understands typical backslash escape sequences. LavaLauncher sets some environmental variables for the processes it launches. Since all commands are executed via a shell, they can be used as arguments for the commands. These variables are as follows. $LAVALAUNCHER_OUTPUT_NAME The name of the output the button has been clicked on. $LAVALAUNCHER_OUTPUT_SCALE The scale of the output the button has been clicked on. COLOURS LavaLauncher can parse hex code colours and read RGB values directly. The supported formats are "#RRGGBB", "#RRGGBBAA", "0xRRGGBB" and "0xRRGGB- BAA" for hex code colours and "rgb(rrr,ggg,bbb)" and "rgba(rrr,ggg,bbb,aaa)" for RGB colours. CONDITIONS Conditions are (re-)evaluated and bars created and destroyed and their ac- tive configuration set chosen accordingly whenever an outputs parameters are updated. IMAGES LavaLauncher support PNG images and, if enabled at compile time, SVG im- ages. It is recommended to use square images. EXAMPLE CONFIGURATION This is a simple configuration example, demonstrating a bar with two but- tons and an additional configuration set. The second button uses advanced command binds. global-settings { watch-config-file = true; } bar { output = eDP-1; position = bottom; background-colour = "#202020"; # Condition for the default configuration set. condition-resolution = wider-than-high; config { # Condition for this configuration set. condition-resolution = higher-than-wide; # Additional configuration sets copy the default configuration set, # but settings can be overwritten. position = left; } button { image-path = /path/to/image.png; command = useful-script.sh; } button { image-path = /path/to/another/image.png; command[mouse-left] = another-useful-script.sh; command[mouse-right] = another-useful-script.sh; command[shift+mouse-left] = another-useful-script.sh; command[shift+alt+mouse-left] = another-useful-script.sh; # Binding commands to scroll events is nice to configure # things like audio volume or screen brightness command[scroll-up] = volume up; command[scroll-down] = volume down; command[shift+scroll-up] = volume microphone-up; command[shift+scroll-down] = volume microphone-down; } } BUGS Probably. Please report all bugs you find with an explanation how to reproduce them. MAILINGLIST You can send bug reports, patches and feedback to the mailinglist. <~leon_plickat/lavalauncher@lists.sr.ht> GIT This project is developed using git. You can find the repository by visit- ing the following URL. <https://git.sr.ht/~leon_plickat/lavalauncher> AUTHORS Leon Henrik Plickat <leonhenrik.plickat@stud.uni-goettingen.de> 2026-08-28 lavalauncher(1)
NAME | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | CONFIGURATION | BUGS | MAILINGLIST | GIT | AUTHORS
Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:
<https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=lavalauncher&sektion=1&manpath=FreeBSD+Ports+15.1.quarterly>