AeroWM

A Wayland compositor built in Rust on top of Smithay.

The idea is simple: your windows live on an infinite canvas in a tree. Day-to-day you work in normal tiling mode. When things get complex, you zoom out and see everything at once - the whole tree, every window, laid out in front of you. Pinch to zoom, drag to pan, then dive back in.

What it does

• BSP tiling - windows split the space automatically as you open them
• Tree view - zoom out to the infinite canvas and see your whole window tree
• Rounded corners - window content clipped to a rounded rectangle, not just the border
• Scratchpad - a floating window outside the tree you can summon and dismiss anytime
• Areas - mark regions of the canvas and jump between them instantly
• Backgrounds - solid colour, wallpaper image, or a custom GLSL shader
• XWayland - X11 apps work fine
• Lua config - one file, hot-reloaded, no restart needed
• Trackpad gestures - pinch to zoom, swipe to pan
• Everything else - layer shell, screencopy, clipboard, IME, idle protocols, multi-monitor

Requirements

• A Linux system with DRM/KMS support
• libseat for session management
• libinput for input handling
• A GPU with EGL/GBM support

Building

cargo build --release

Running

cargo run --release

Or after building:

./target/release/aerowm

To launch with an app:

./target/release/aerowm -e kitty

Configuration

The config file lives at ~/.config/aerowm/aerowm.lua. If it doesn't exist, AeroWM will create a default one on first run.

Example config

config = {
    main_modifier = "Super",
    gap = 80.0,
    focused_border_color = '#4090c2',
    unfocused_border_color = '#000000',
    background_type = "color",
    background_color = '#1a1a1a',
    corner_rounding = 32.0,
    tile_distance = 8,
    border_width = 2.0,
    animation_ease = 0.3,
    hover_to_focus = true,
    client_side_decorations = false,
    cursor_size = {32, 32},

    area_colors = {
        '#5e81ac', '#88c0d0', '#8fbcbb', '#a3be8c', '#ebcb8b',
        '#d08770', '#b48ead', '#81a1c1', '#4c566a', '#76c0a0',
    },
    area_border_thickness = 3,
    always_show_areas = false,

    apps = {
        terminal = "kitty",
        browser  = "firefox",
    },

    launch_rules = {},
}

input = {
    layouts = {"us"},
    repeat_rate = 25,
    repeat_delay = 600,
    pointer_speed = 1.0,
}

local mainMod = "Super"

-- Keybinds
bind(mainMod .. "+Return", "exec", "terminal")
bind(mainMod .. "+W",      "exec", "browser")
bind(mainMod .. "+Q",      "close")
bind(mainMod .. "+F",      "fullscreen")
bind(mainMod .. "+Space",  "switch_view")

bind(mainMod .. "+P",      "parent")
bind(mainMod .. "+N",      "sibling")
bind(mainMod .. "+C",      "child")
bind(mainMod .. "+Z",      "focus_zoom")
bind(mainMod .. "+Home",   "reset_view")

bind(mainMod .. "+Left",   "pan", "-100 0")
bind(mainMod .. "+Right",  "pan", "100 0")
bind(mainMod .. "+Up",     "pan", "0 -100")
bind(mainMod .. "+Down",   "pan", "0 100")

bind(mainMod .. "+S",         "send_to_scratchpad")
bind(mainMod .. "+Shift+S",   "toggle_scratchpad")

bind("Alt+Shift",              "switch_layout")

bind("Super+Alt+BackSpace", "quit")

Monitor configuration

monitor("DP-1", "0x0", 165.0, 1.0)
monitor("HDMI-A-1", "2560x0", 75.0, 1.0)

Arguments: output name, position as "WxH", refresh rate in Hz, scale factor.

Input configuration

input = {
    layouts = {"us", "il"},   -- XKB layout names, cycled with switch_layout
    repeat_rate = 25,         -- key repeats per second
    repeat_delay = 600,       -- ms before repeat starts
    pointer_speed = 1.0,      -- flat speed multiplier

    -- optional: custom acceleration function, receives movement speed, returns multiplier
    pointer_acceleration = function(speed)
        return 1.0 + speed * 0.1
    end,
}

Keybind syntax

bind("Mod+Key", "action")
bind("Mod+Key", "action", "argument")

Modifiers: Ctrl, Alt, Shift, Super. Mouse buttons: left, right, middle. Modifier-only binds (e.g. "Alt+Shift") are also supported.

Actions

Action	Argument	Description
exec	command or app alias	Launch an application
close		Close the focused window
quit		Exit AeroWM
fullscreen		Toggle fullscreen for the focused window
switch_view		Toggle between tiling and tree view
parent		Focus the parent window in the tree
child		Focus the first child window in the tree
sibling		Focus the next sibling window in the tree
focus_zoom		Zoom the viewport to the focused window (tree view)
reset_view		Reset viewport and zoom
pan	"dx dy"	Pan the canvas by dx, dy pixels
switch_vt	vt number	Switch to a virtual terminal
mark_area		Start marking a new area by dragging on the canvas
goto_area	area number	Animate the viewport to fill the given area
remove_area		Remove the currently active area
show_areas		Hold to show area outlines on the canvas
send_to_scratchpad		Move the focused window to the scratchpad
toggle_scratchpad		Show or hide the scratchpad window
switch_layout		Cycle to the next XKB keyboard layout

🗺️ Roadmap

• ✅ XWayland support
• ✅ Multi-output / multi-monitor support
• ✅ Background images and shaders
• ✅ Trackpad gestures
• ✅ Scratchpad
• ✅ IPC - full external control over Unix socket
• ✅ Screencopy - screenshot and screen recording support
• ✅ Clipboard manager - wlr-data-control protocol
• ✅ Idle notify and idle inhibit
• ✅ Config hot-reload
• ✅ IME / multi-language input
• ✅ Layer shell - bars, docks, notifications
• ⬜ Session lock - ext-session-lock protocol
• ⬜ Animations - window open/close transitions
• ⬜ Window rules - auto-assign apps to positions or parents on launch

License

MIT