feresaria/docs/configuration.md

Configuration

Edit ~/.config/ferese/config.kdl (or $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/ferese/config.kdl), or open Control Center → Settings. Start with the example, which includes app and media shortcuts, appearance and optional startup and display settings. Its browser/editor shortcuts need Firefox/Zed; brightness keys need brightnessctl and audio keys need wpctl. This reference covers layouts, appearance, input, and desktop behavior. See Desktop portals for application integration options. The Live Activities guide covers task visibility, shell detection, command rules and notification bridging.

KDL syntax

Sections use nested braces, values follow their names, and booleans are #true or #false. Multiple values represent arrays. Hyphenated keys are preferred; underscore spellings remain accepted. Enum values retain their documented spelling. A newline or semicolon ends each node. Comments use // or /* ... */. For example:

input {
    repeat-rate 30
    touchpad {
        swipe-threshold 80
    }
}

commands {
    terminal "foot"
}

binding "Super+Enter" "spawn" "terminal"
binding "Swipe3Up" "toggle-overview"
binding "Swipe3Down" disabled=#true
output-profile "docked" {
    output "HDMI-A-1" {
        scale 1.5
        position 0 0
    }
}

Lists use repeated panel, group, item, binding, window-rule, output-profile, output, and autostart nodes. Bindings take their keys, action, and argument positionally; profiles and outputs take a positional name or match. Panels, groups, and items use positional IDs, while autostart commands use positional arguments. Other fields can be properties or child nodes, but duplicate fields are rejected. The dotted paths in the reference tables below describe nested sections.

Settings preserves comments and untouched configuration content when editing, while normalizing indentation. Panel item annotations belong in an explicit metadata section; unrecognized built-in options are rejected.

The Settings sidebar groups pages under Desktop, Interaction, and System, with Motion under Windows and Shortcuts under Keyboard & mouse. Search includes both views and opens the matching setting directly.

Saving and validation

Settings saves text when you press Enter or leave the field, and sliders when you release them, keeping config.kdl.settings-backup before each save. Use Undo to restore the previous save, or Reload to read external edits without merging unfinished drafts. To browse for a wallpaper, install zenity; you can also enter its path directly.

File edits reload automatically, including atomic editor saves, so changes to appearance, wallpaper, motion, input, bindings, rules, layouts, displays, and login items take effect live. If a reload is invalid, Ferese reports the error and keeps the last working configuration.

At login, Ferese loads your configuration or uses the built-in defaults if the file is missing or invalid. For an invalid file, it shows a notification once the desktop is ready and leaves the file untouched, so you can correct it to match the current schema and reload your settings.

feresectl reload-config          # reload with error feedback
ferese --check-config PATH       # validate without applying
ferese-settings --config PATH   # edit a separate preview config
ferese-settings --page wifi     # open Wi-Fi controls
ferese-settings --page bluetooth # open Bluetooth controls

Settings → Connections manages Wi-Fi through NetworkManager and Bluetooth through BlueZ. Wi-Fi supports scanning, joining open/WPA/WPA2/WPA3 networks, hidden networks, changing saved passwords, disconnecting, and forgetting saved networks. Enterprise and legacy Wi-Fi connections use an existing NetworkManager profile; their certificate and authentication setup is not edited here.

Bluetooth supports adapter selection, power, discovery, pairing with PIN/passkey or confirmation prompts, connecting, disconnecting, trust, and forgetting devices. Discovery runs only when requested and stops after 30 seconds, when leaving Connections, or when Settings closes. Leaving the page or closing Settings also cancels pending pairing. Passwords are sent to NetworkManager, not saved in KDL; pairing keys are managed by BlueZ. These controls affect the system even when Settings is opened with a separate preview config.

The tables below give built-in defaults; your configuration or the packaged example may override them. Dimensions use logical pixels unless noted, and numbers must be finite. Omit optional values rather than writing null, use #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA for colors, and keep the live config within 60 KiB.

Layout

layout key	Type / values	Default	Meaning
mode	"scrolling", "tree"	"scrolling"	Workspace layout
inner-gap	number ≥ 0	10	Between windows
outer-gap	number ≥ 0	4	Around workspace edges
smart-gaps	boolean	false	Remove outer gaps for one tiled window

scrolling key	Type / values	Default	Meaning
default-column-width	proportion > 0; or "full"	0.5	Width of new columns
focus-strategy	"minimal", "center_on_focus", "paged"	"minimal"	Viewport movement on focus
width-presets	array of widths	[0.3333333333333333, 0.5, 0.6666666666666666, "full"]	Super+R cycle; empty uses defaults

minimal leaves fully visible columns in place and scrolls only enough to reveal a hidden edge, ignoring differences of up to 0.5 logical pixels. Full-width columns align with the viewport. Wider columns reveal their left edge when approached from the left and their right edge when approached from the right; an existing view inside a wider column stays in place. center_on_focus centers the focused column. paged packs columns into viewport-sized pages: halves form pairs, thirds form triples; mixed widths and effective minimum sizes determine actual boundaries. Changing default width preserves manually resized columns.

Animations

Continuum is Ferese's shared compositor and shell motion system. Set animation speed in Settings → Windows → Motion or edit the animations block in ~/.config/ferese/config.kdl. Changes apply live. Start with speed if you only want faster or slower transitions; you do not need to change the springs.

animations {
    enabled #true
    reduced-motion #false
    speed 1.0

    spring {
        duration-ms 240.0
        bounce 0.0
        overshoot #false
    }

    viewport-spring {
        duration-ms 350.0
        bounce 0.0
        overshoot #false
    }
}

This example uses the built-in defaults. The packaged config sets speed 0.9. You can omit either spring block to keep its defaults.

Section / key	Type	Default	Meaning
animations.enabled	boolean	true	Enable motion
animations.reduced-motion	boolean	false	Disable animated motion
animations.speed	number > 0	1	Higher is faster; 0.75 is slower
animations.spring.duration-ms	number > 0	240	Window and shell spring response
animations.viewport-spring.duration-ms	number > 0	350	Scrolling and workspace spring response

Both spring and viewport-spring accept these keys:

Key	Type	Default	Meaning
duration-ms	number > 0	240 or 350, as above	Larger values give a slower response; not a completion deadline
bounce	number strictly between −1 and 1	0	Zero is critical damping; positive values require overshoot
overshoot	boolean	false	Allow this spring to cross its target

Use duration and bounce to configure spring physics. mass, stiffness, damping and damping-ratio are internal solver parameters, not configuration keys. Removed or misspelled animation keys are rejected. Invalid edits leave the last accepted configuration active.

Speed and reduced motion

speed changes window motion, scrolling, workspace transitions, overview, theme transitions and shell popup, notification and hover transitions. 0.5 gives an animation twice as much time; 2.0 gives it half as much. Overview uses 60% of this speed when opening or closing, including when selecting a window. There is no separate overview-speed setting.

Set reduced-motion #true or enabled #false to make these transitions immediate. Reduced motion takes precedence over enabled #true; setting speed 0 is invalid. These settings control Ferese's animations, not animations inside other applications.

Morph animates its shape with its own spring and fades between views, while following the shared speed and reduced-motion policy; see the panel guide for its states and size controls.

Shell animations sample motion on each surface's redraw, paced by its Wayland frame callbacks. They request animation frames only while moving. Menus, modals, notifications and hover fades use this path instead of a fixed 16 ms animation timer. Clock, notification-expiry and service updates keep their own schedules.

Overview can reverse while moving, and workspace changes slide in their navigation direction. Workspace and scrolling gestures carry their release velocity into the settling spring. Scrolling gestures resist at viewport limits and spring back. Window opening starts when content is available; closing waits for the application to unmap, then animates its retained image. Input and application close requests remain responsive while the animations finish.

Live windows, overview thumbnails and retained images share a window identity and presentation state. Entering overview inherits the window's visible position and velocity, including motion from a workspace slide. Resize images use the same content mapping in overview and remain visible if the window closes during a resize. Content, clipping and borders use the same squircle outline at the output's scale.

Spring tuning

spring controls window position and size motion, fullscreen/maximize zoom and overview entrance and dismissal, opening/closing windows, focus emphasis, shell popups and notifications. viewport-spring controls the scrolling viewport, workspace slides and the column-width animation that runs with scrolling. Continuum shares the analytic spring solver and motion settings between the compositor and shell. Small opacity changes (hover, dimming, theme fades) may still use timed transitions.

Focus emphasis and shadows have separate spring responses. Emphasis uses 80% of the main spring's response time; shadows use 120%. These ratios preserve the configured damping ratio and overshoot policy, and follow speed and reduced motion. They are built-in tuning values, not additional configuration keys. Focused windows use the theme's full shadow. Unfocused shadows use 75% of its vertical offset, 90% of its blur radius and 80% of its opacity, with spring motion between those values. Shadow motion does not change the content or border geometry.

Spring settling time depends on distance, velocity and tolerances. duration-ms controls the response, not a fixed completion deadline. Both default springs are critically damped; the viewport has a slower response than windows and shell popups.

To opt into bounce for one spring:

animations {
    spring {
        duration-ms 300.0
        bounce 0.2
        overshoot #true
    }
}

Bounce defaults to zero and must be strictly between -1 and 1. Positive bounce requires overshoot #true in that spring block. Negative bounce adds overdamping. Without overshoot, Ferese stops a spring at its first target crossing. Opacity remains bounded even when geometry can overshoot. Overshoot is never enabled globally.

For the solver, mass is fixed at 1. With T = duration-ms / 1000, Continuum uses omega = 2*pi/T, stiffness = omega^2 and damping = 2*omega*zeta. zeta = 1-bounce for nonnegative bounce, otherwise zeta = 1/(1+bounce). This conversion does not guarantee the same perceptual duration or settling time as Apple's springs.

Duration and speed must be finite and greater than zero. Bounce must be finite. Values that overflow or underflow the derived coefficients are rejected. The allowed bounce range keeps damping positive, so undamped oscillation cannot prevent popup cleanup.

Appearance

Settings → Appearance offers six paired themes: Ferese Blue (default), Catppuccin, Gruvbox, Rosé Pine, Tokyo Night, and Everforest. Ferese Blue uses the default accent, #3D7BE6, and has light and dark variants. Choose Light, Dark, or Auto in Settings or Control Center. Auto follows local 07:00 and 19:00 boundaries unless you change its schedule.

Selections store preset names. Partial KDL files can override shared colors or one appearance.

Section / key	Type	Default	Meaning
theme.mode	"light", "dark", "auto"	"dark"	Selected appearance mode
theme.family	family id	"ferese-blue"	Paired theme; automatically uses its light or dark variant
theme.split	boolean	false	Use separate light/dark families; retains both selections when disabled
theme.light.family, theme.dark.family	family id	"ferese-blue"	Stored selections used when split is enabled
theme.custom-themes.<id>.file	path	unset	Imported KDL family with explicit light and/or dark sections
theme.light.preset	preset name	"ferese-blue-light"	Light palette
theme.dark.preset	preset name	"ferese-blue"	Dark palette
theme.file	path	unset	Shared partial KDL theme
theme.light.file, theme.dark.file	path	unset	Partial KDL theme for one appearance
theme.accent	hex color	unset	Accent override, adjusted for readability in each appearance
theme.schedule.source	"system", "schedule"	"schedule"	Follow GTK/GNOME appearance or a custom schedule; sunrise/sunset is deferred
theme.schedule.timezone	"system" or IANA timezone	"system"	Auto schedule timezone
theme.schedule.light-at, theme.schedule.dark-at	HH:MM	"07:00", "19:00"	Auto boundaries; times must differ
theme.accessibility.increase-contrast	boolean	false	Strengthen text and borders
theme.accessibility.reduce-transparency	boolean	false	Solid surfaces; skip background blur
appearance.focus-effect.enabled	boolean	true	Apply window opacity and dimming; disabling keeps the configured values
appearance.focus-effect.active-opacity	number 0–1	1	Active application opacity, including fullscreen
appearance.focus-effect.inactive-opacity	number 0–1	1	Other application window opacity
appearance.focus-effect.inactive-dim	number 0–1	0	Darkening strength for inactive windows; 0 disables
appearance.focus-effect.duration-ms	number ≥ 0	150	Shared opacity and dimming transition; 0 snaps
theme.typography.font-family	string	"Inter"	Shell, Settings and overview font
theme.background.path	string	matching light/dark wallpaper	Shared wallpaper; an explicit path overrides both bundled defaults
theme.light.background.path, theme.dark.background.path	string	shared path, or matching default	Wallpaper for one appearance; overrides the shared path
theme.background.mode	"fill", "fit"	"fill"	Crop or letterbox
theme.light.background.mode, theme.dark.background.mode	"fill", "fit"	shared placement	Image placement for one appearance
theme.material.style	"solid", "translucent"	"solid"	Shell background material
theme.material.opacity	number 0–1	0.78	Shared shell background opacity for bars, menus, popovers, notifications and themed dialogs. Text/icons stay opaque; 0 hides the material. Solid mode is always opaque
theme.material.tint-strength	number 0–1	Dark 0.5, light 1	Color strength over the blurred backdrop
theme.material.blur-radius	number ≥ 0	12	Translucent backdrop blur, capped at 32; 0 disables

Window opacity follows the active application. Giving keyboard focus to a shell menu does not change it. Overview selection changes the highlight, while window opacity still follows activation; dimming fades out as overview opens. Fullscreen windows use the same opacity settings. Opening and closing fades multiply window opacity. Reduced motion disables the focus transition.

Settings → Wallpaper shows the current image and both bundled defaults. Use Apply to to change both modes or just one. Match appearance restores the bundled light and dark pair. Custom images can also be selected separately in KDL:

theme {
    light {
        background { path "~/Pictures/day.png"; }
    }
    dark {
        background { path "~/Pictures/night.jpg"; }
    }
}

The wallpaper follows manual light/dark changes and automatic appearance changes. A shared theme.background.path applies to both modes unless a per-mode path is set.

theme.colors key	Default	Meaning
surface-base	"#111821"	Material/card base color
surface-raised	"#1E2530"	Raised surfaces, including the Morph hub
text-primary	"#F4F7FB"	Main text
text-muted	"#8793A2"	Secondary text
accent	"#3D7BE6"	Active controls and solid focus ring
border	"#FFFFFF18"	Unfocused window border
shadow	"#00000055"	Window shadow color

Filled controls choose a contrasting text color automatically.

theme.geometry key	Type	Default	Meaning
border-width	number ≥ 0	1	Window border thickness
focus-ring-width	number ≥ 0	2	Focused border thickness
window-radius	number ≥ 0	14	Managed-window corners, independent of the shell
shell-radius	number ≥ 0	14	Shell surfaces and controls, apart from panel shapes; fractional radii are preserved; 0 makes them square
control-gap	number ≥ 0	12	Shared control spacing token; panel spacing belongs to its groups

Section / key	Type	Default	Meaning
theme.surface.bar.background	color	"#111821"	Regular panel background color; Morph uses surface-raised
theme.surface.bar.text-primary	color	"#F4F7FB"	Panel text/icons
theme.surface.bar.text-muted	color	"#8793A2"	Inactive panel foreground
theme.shadow.soft.offset-y	number	4	Window shadow vertical offset
theme.shadow.soft.blur	number ≥ 0	18	Window shadow softness
theme.shadow.soft.opacity	number 0–1	0.20	Window shadow strength

Solid materials omit blur; translucent materials blur behind the surface color. True fullscreen removes decorations. Focus transitions never scale the content.

Window focus borders and selected controls use an accent gradient by default. Built-in themes supply the second color; when a theme has one accent color, Ferese derives a nearby lighter or darker shade. Changing the accent replaces the automatic gradient. Inactive window borders derive their gradient from the border color and keep its transparency. Automatic accent endpoints are adjusted for contrast against the theme's surfaces.

In Settings → Appearance, choose Gradient or Solid for Accent style and Inactive border style. In KDL, theme.focus-ring.style and theme.border.style accept "auto" (default) or "solid". Solid disables the gradient, including any explicit endpoints, without deleting them from the config.

For custom endpoints, set theme.focus-ring.gradient or theme.border.gradient. Both require from and to colors; angle is optional and defaults to 0. Angles are clockwise: 0 is left-to-right, 90 top-to-bottom. Explicit gradients take precedence over automatically derived colors. The automatic angle is 135°.

theme {
    focus-ring {
        gradient {
            from "#e5c890"
            to "#b98d58"
            angle 135.0
        }
    }
}

For solid colors:

theme {
    focus-ring { style "solid"; }
    border { style "solid"; }
}

Workspaces

Each monitor has an independent list of workspaces, numbered from 1. Its bar, overview strip, and numeric shortcuts use that same order. Numbers change when empty workspaces are removed; internal workspace IDs stay stable.

One empty workspace is always available at the end of each monitor's list. Opening or moving a window there creates another spare. An empty workspace stays while displayed or participating in a swipe, then disappears after you leave it. Selecting a number beyond the current list selects the trailing empty workspace. Window-rule workspace numbers also refer to positions on the window's monitor.

Super+Escape returns to the previous surviving workspace on the focused monitor. History does not keep abandoned empty workspaces alive. With no previous workspace, the action does nothing. Disconnecting a monitor clears its history; occupied workspaces move to another monitor and can return when it reconnects.

Enable Settings → Windows → Toggle back with the same workspace shortcut, or:

workspaces {
    auto-back-and-forth #true
}

This defaults to #false. When enabled, pressing a workspace binding for the current workspace returns to the previous one. Explicit feresectl workspace N commands and overview selection still select the requested workspace directly. Use feresectl workspace-back-and-forth for an explicit toggle, or bind workspace-back-and-forth to another key or gesture. The action takes no argument.

Super+BackSpace focuses the last focused window, including windows on other workspaces or monitors. Repeating it toggles between the two most recently focused windows. Layer surfaces such as launchers do not replace this history.

Alt+Tab previews windows in focus order using overview. Keep Alt held and press Tab to advance, or Shift+Tab to go backward. Release Alt to focus the selection; Escape cancels without changing focus. The order stays fixed until selection is committed. Closed windows are skipped and newly opened windows join the next cycle. Preview transitions follow the configured animation speed and reduced motion settings.

Bind focus-last-window, focus-mru-next, or focus-mru-previous to customize these shortcuts. MRU bindings with Alt held preview until Alt is released; bindings without Alt, gestures, and the corresponding feresectl commands switch immediately. All three actions take no arguments.

Input

input key	Type	Default	Meaning
focus-follows-mouse	boolean	false	Focus visible windows under the pointer without raising them or scrolling; click or use keyboard focus to reveal a window
xkb-layout	nonempty string	"us"	XKB layout
xkb-variant	string	""	XKB variant
xkb-options	string array	[]	XKB options
repeat-rate	integer > 0	25	Repeats per second
repeat-delay-ms	integer ≥ 0	600	Delay before repeat

With focus-follows-mouse enabled, hovering a visible part of a window changes keyboard focus without raising it or moving the scrolling viewport. Clicking or using directional keyboard focus brings the selected window into view.

In Overview (Super+Tab), click a window preview or a miniature inside a workspace card to activate that exact window. Hover highlights the target; directional focus keys move the selection, Enter activates it, and Escape dismisses Overview. Clicking a workspace card's background switches workspaces while keeping Overview open. Previews follow layout order and use the configured shell font and colors.

The touchpad device keys are booleans, all defaulting to true: tap, natural-scroll and disable-while-typing. These apply to DRM devices; nested previews use the host's physical input settings.

Workspace swipes and left/right window-focus swipes follow your fingers and settle when released. Up goes to the next workspace on the current monitor, down to the previous; left focuses the window to the right, and right focuses the window to the left. Workspace swipes skip workspaces owned by other monitors and stop at the first/last workspace. Short or cancelled navigation swipes slide back; diagonal swipes do not navigate. Navigation pauses while locked, during window grabs, or when an application inhibits shortcuts.

Assign swipes in Settings → Keyboard & mouse → Shortcuts using the same actions and arguments as keyboard bindings. Choose a "Customize swipe" button to add an override. The gesture keys are Swipe3Up, Swipe3Down, Swipe3Left, and Swipe3Right; 4 or 5 fingers are also supported. Changes reload live:

binding keys="Swipe3Up" action="toggle-overview"
binding keys="Swipe3Left" action="move" argument="left"
binding keys="Swipe3Down" disabled=#true

spawn uses a named entry from commands, just like keyboard shortcuts. To disable a direction in Settings, set its action to none and leave Argument empty. In KDL, disabled=#true removes the default binding. Swipes do not use keyboard modifiers or physical key matching. The trigger is automatically recognized from its name. Gesture navigation uses native touchpad events in a hardware session.

Adjust recognition distance in Settings → Keyboard & mouse, or with swipe-threshold 80 under input.touchpad (integer 16–1000 logical pixels).

Commands and bindings

See Shortcuts and gestures for the full default keymap and mouse actions.

commands maps arbitrary names to nonempty argument arrays. The built-in terminal "foot" can be overridden. Commands run directly, without a shell.

binding key	Type / values	Default
keys	chord or gesture, e.g. "Super+Enter", "Swipe3Up"	required
match	"keysym", "physical"	"keysym"
action	action name below	required unless disabled
argument	string	required only for actions listed below
disabled	boolean	false

Modifiers: Super/Logo/Mod4, Ctrl/Control, Alt, Shift. Keys use XKB keysyms (Enter, letters, [/]) or physical XKB names (AD06). A binding replaces the same normalized chord/match mode. Duplicate bindings are invalid. A disabled binding must omit action and argument.

Actions	Argument
spawn	Name in commands
focus, move, resize	"left", "right", "up", "down"
workspace, move-to-workspace	Workspace number string, 1–255
workspace-next, workspace-previous	None; next/previous workspace on this monitor
workspace-back-and-forth	None; return to the previous workspace on this monitor
focus-last-window	None; return to the last focused window
focus-floating	None; focus the last focused window in the opposite tiled/floating layer on this workspace
focus-mru-next, focus-mru-previous	None; cycle windows in focus order
none	None; ignore this trigger
close, exit, toggle-maximized, toggle-fullscreen, toggle-layout, cycle-column-width, center-column, consume, expel, toggle-floating, toggle-overview	None

commands {
    terminal "foot"
}
binding keys="Super+Enter" action="spawn" argument="terminal"
binding keys="Super+V" action="focus-floating"

focus-floating switches focus between tiled and floating windows without changing placement. It stays on the active workspace and does nothing when the opposite layer has no candidate. toggle-floating changes window placement.

Defaults: Super+Enter terminal; Super+Q close; Super+H/J/K/L focus; Super+Shift+H/J/K/L move; Super+Ctrl+H/J/K/L resize; Super+1–9 workspace; Super+Shift+1–9 move to workspace; Super+R width cycle; Super+C center; Super+[/] consume/expel; Super+F maximize; Super+Shift+F fullscreen; Super+M layout; Super+Shift+Space floating; Super+V focus tiled/floating; Super+Tab overview; Super+Escape previous visited workspace; Super+BackSpace last focused window; Alt+Tab/Alt+Shift+Tab MRU switching; Super+Shift+S area screenshot; Print Screen whole-screen screenshot; Super+Shift+E logout confirmation.

Hold Super and drag a floating window with the left mouse button to move it. Hold Super and drag with the right mouse button to resize. The starting position selects an edge or corner using a 3×3 grid; the center selects the nearest corner. The selected edges stay fixed for the whole drag. These work even when an app has no title bar or resize border.

For a floating window, Super+Shift+H/J/K/L moves left/down/up/right by 32 logical pixels. Super+Ctrl+H/L shrinks/grows its width; Super+Ctrl+K/J shrinks/grows its height by the same step. Keyboard adjustments respect client size limits and keep the window reachable in its output's work area. Fullscreen and maximized floating windows ignore these actions.

Mouse moves and resizes snap to work-area edges and nearby visible window edges at 10 logical pixels, then resist movement until 20 pixels from the attached edge. Window edges are eligible only when the windows overlap along the other axis, with a 10-pixel allowance. Hold Shift during a drag to bypass snapping.

The screenshot shortcut runs ferese-screenshot: drag to select an area, or press Escape to cancel. Captures open in Satty for annotation. Press Enter to save the edited PNG under your Pictures directory in Screenshots and copy it to the clipboard; Escape discards the capture. It requires slurp, satty, and wl-copy (from wl-clipboard); the capture itself is done by the compositor through feresectl screenshot. Override the screenshot command to use another screenshot tool. Print Screen runs ferese-screenshot --full and captures the active monitor without a selector, falling back to the sole enabled output when focus is unavailable. It never silently captures every output. Fn+PrtSc works when the keyboard emits the Print Screen key; Fn is handled by the keyboard firmware. Override screenshot-full to customize this command. Both modes open Satty with the same save and copy workflow.

ferese-screenshot --all captures every enabled output as one image.

Satty opens as a floating window sized for the captured image and constrained to the workspace.

Window rules

Native authentication and display-sharing dialogs float by default. Explicit window rules can override that behavior.

window-rule key	Type	Default / meaning
app-id	nonempty string	Optional exact match; case-insensitive, .desktop suffix ignored
title	nonempty string	Optional exact, case-sensitive match
transient	boolean	Optional parent-dialog match
workspace	integer > 0	Leave placement unchanged
floating	boolean	Leave placement unchanged
width, height	numbers > 0	Application-chosen floating size
min-width, min-height	numbers > 0	Replaces the client's advertised minimum size for that axis
fullscreen	boolean	Leave fullscreen state unchanged
block-out-from-screencasts	boolean	Exclude from captures; enabled by default for Ferese authentication dialogs
idle-inhibit	none, visible, fullscreen, playing, fullscreen-playing	Automatic fullscreen playback; see Idle inhibition

window-rule app-id="spotify" min-width=500 min-height=400 replaces what the app itself reports as its smallest size, so a configured column width wins over an app that refuses to shrink (min-width=1 removes the floor). Each axis is independent; an omitted axis keeps the client's minimum.

window-rule app-id="org.example.Private" block-out-from-screencasts=#true keeps matching windows visible on the display but omits them (including their popups, subsurfaces, shadows and overview previews) from monitor and region captures. The background or windows behind them remain visible in the capture. Transient children inherit protection even on another output. Direct window capture fails, ending an active window stream. Custom cursors from a client with a protected window are also omitted until the cursor image is replaced. Detached close-animation snapshots are omitted from captures.

This applies to portal sharing, recording, native capture protocols and screenshots: these routes share capture buffers. The rule is checked against current app-ID, title and parent metadata, and updates on config reload. Other placement rules retain their existing lifecycle. Later matching rules may set the field to #false, including for dev.ferese.Authentication; a protected parent still protects its children. A protection change cancels deferred screenshots and window frames. Frames already delivered to a capture client cannot be recalled.

Every rule needs at least one matcher, and supplied matchers must all match. Rules apply in order; later fields override earlier ones. Dimensions imply floating when floating is omitted. Floating apps without dimensions choose their own size. Ferese first tries to center transient windows on the visible part of their parent, then tries saved geometry, then the position with the least summed overlap. Equal-overlap candidates favor the focused window's center. If the size cannot fit, a per-output cascade advances by 32 logical pixels and wraps to the work-area origin. Placement respects layer-shell exclusive zones and effective minimum sizes; an oversized window keeps its size with its top-left corner reachable.

Successful move/resize completion saves ordinary floating geometry by app ID in $XDG_STATE_HOME/ferese/floating.json (normally ~/.local/state/ferese/floating.json). Geometry is stored with the output name and as fractions of its work area, so placement survives resolution changes. Restores are skipped if the output is missing or less than 25% of the window would be visible. A worker saves the latest snapshot, combining pending updates. Completing a drag updates memory immediately without waiting for storage. Transient dialogs and cancelled drags do not update this memory. Floating → tiled → floating also restores the window's last floating geometry. Nested previews keep drag memory in process and do not write the user's saved placements.

Title changes do not reapply placement rules. Capture privacy and idle inhibition follow current app ID, title and parent metadata. Config rule changes apply to existing windows.

window-rule app-id="dev.ferese.Settings" floating=#true

Displays

Each output-profile needs a unique, nonempty name and at least one output entry. A profile matches when every required monitor is connected and its optional lid-closed condition matches. The profile with the most required monitors wins; ties use config order. If none matches, Ferese extends across all usable connected monitors. Find selectors with feresectl outputs.

output-profile key	Type	Default
name	unique nonempty string	required
layout	internal-only, external-only, extend, mirror	extend
lid-closed	boolean	either lid state
mirror-source	selector of an enabled output in this profile	first enabled hardware key
lid-policy	dock-or-suspend, ignore	dock-or-suspend
confirm-timeout	seconds; 0 disables confirmation	15

output-profile → output key	Type	Default
match	nonempty connector or persistent identity string	required; unique within profile
required	boolean	true; set false for an optional monitor
enabled	boolean	true
mode	"WIDTHxHEIGHT" or "WIDTHxHEIGHT@HZ"	Preferred mode
auto-refresh	boolean	false
scale	number > 0	1
transform	enum below	"normal"
position	[integer, integer]	Automatic horizontal placement

Transforms: normal, rotate-90, rotate-180, rotate-270, flipped, flipped-90, flipped-180, flipped-270. In extend and mirror profiles, unlisted monitors stay enabled with defaults. Internal-only and external-only filter by connector type. A layout that would disable the final usable display falls back to a working display. Profiles that explicitly disable all their listed outputs are invalid.

Monitor identities use EDID manufacturer, product/model and serial, rather than a hash of the entire EDID. Without a usable serial, the identity includes the GPU's sysfs hardware path and connector. For duplicate serials, Ferese adds the same path and connector to distinguish the monitors. If both arrive together, both identities include those details. If the second arrives later, the first keeps its identity and only the second gets the path and connector. Ferese remembers that choice for the compositor session. Without serials, Ferese identifies monitors by port and cannot tell them apart if you swap their ports. Connector names and old drm-edid: selectors still work. Ambiguous or overlapping selectors are rejected during live reload. A disconnected identity can remain in config; it prevents matching only when its entry has required=#true.

output-profile "desk" layout="external-only" {
    output "DP-1" mode="2560x1440@60" scale=1.25
    output "eDP-1" required=#false enabled=#false
}

output-profile "mobile" layout="internal-only" {
    output "eDP-1" scale=1.75
}

output-profile "presentation" layout="mirror" mirror-source="eDP-1" {
    output "eDP-1" scale=1.75
    output "HDMI-A-1" mode="1920x1080@60"
}

Mirror uses the source's logical size, workspace, layers and pointer. Targets own no workspaces or separate pointer region. Ferese fits the complete source into each target's transformed physical mode, preserving aspect ratio and letterboxing instead of cropping. Target scale does not resize the source layout. Each target has its own hardware cadence; only the source releases client frame callbacks and presentation feedback. Mirrored monitors are listed by outputs, but expose one logical output to clients and the shell. If a required mirror target disconnects, Ferese selects another matching profile or extends across all usable connected monitors. Leaving mirror restores evacuated workspaces.

feresectl outputs
feresectl output-profiles
feresectl toggle-display-mode
feresectl output-layout extend
feresectl output-profile presentation
feresectl output-confirm
feresectl output-profile auto
feresectl output-internal off
feresectl output-revert

The display Fn key (XF86Display) and the bar’s display icon open the same display-mode chooser. The icon appears while an external monitor is connected. output-layout selects a layout without requiring a named profile and keeps the matching profile’s mode, scale and transform settings.

A manual choice overrides automatic selection until the monitor set or lid state changes. Reload keeps it only if its profile still exists and matches. Manual changes revert after confirm-timeout seconds unless confirmed; output-revert restores immediately. Reverting restores the last confirmed modes, scales, transforms and positions, even if you make several changes before confirming. The timeout still applies if the client that made the change exits. Automatic hotplug/lid changes never wait for confirmation. Disabling the last usable internal panel is rejected.

output-profile name="docked" {
    output match="HDMI-A-1" scale=1.5 {
        position 0 0
    }
}

Settings → Displays offers the connected display's supported refresh rates at its configured resolution. Choosing a rate saves it and disables Auto. Choosing Auto saves the highest supported rate as the normal mode and enables automatic switching. These choices apply immediately for the active profile and persist across restarts.

With auto-refresh=#true, a discharging system battery below 30% switches the display to a supported mode within 1 Hz of 60 Hz at the same resolution. The configured normal mode returns on external power or when the battery reaches 35%. Power is checked every five seconds; mode changes only run when the policy changes. Unavailable battery data restores normal refresh. If no matching 60 Hz mode exists, normal refresh is retained. Rejected DRM mode changes retain the current output. A refresh-rate change can briefly blank the display (about one second on some panels), including automatic changes below 30%, recovery at 35%, and restoration on AC. Session activation refreshes lid and connector state before rendering; unchanged outputs retain their handles and workspaces. Hotplug bursts settle for 150 ms before one reconciliation. Ferese records changes that arrive while the session is inactive and applies them on activation.

output-profile laptop {
    output eDP-1 mode="2880x1800@120" scale=1.75 auto-refresh=#true
}

With a usable external display, closing the lid disables internal panels after external activation succeeds. Without one, Ferese asks logind to suspend, respecting sleep inhibitors. lid-policy="ignore" disables this behavior for the selected profile. Resume reads lid state from logind, with ACPI fallback, before reconciling fresh hardware. Ferese releases its logind lid inhibitor on session pause, so logind handles the lid while another session or TTY is active. Workspaces keep their home output and return when it reconnects, unless you reassigned or deleted them after evacuation. Floating windows are remapped and clamped to the surviving display.

On atomic DRM, Ferese tests the complete configuration for each GPU before changing it. Smithay performs the real commits; logical changes follow successful hardware application. Failed commits attempt restoration, and outputs that cannot be restored are removed from logical state. Each GPU commits separately. If a later GPU fails, Ferese attempts to restore the earlier GPUs. Legacy KMS lacks atomic test-only validation. Hardware failures can still prevent every monitor from working; Ferese tries preferred modes to recover a display instead of intentionally turning off the last working one.

Panel composition

Ferese uses one panel configuration across all outputs, with each output laying out its own workspace controls and focused-window title. Open Settings → Panel & Shell to choose a style and position, then Edit panel to arrange items in Start, Center and End groups. The composition preview stays visible while you edit, and changes save automatically.

Choose style, opacity and corners for the whole panel; groups control layout and spacing. The available styles are Floating, Capsules, Notch, Edge to edge, Fused islands, Adaptive and Morph. Capsules and Fused islands join neighboring groups within a zone, so a zone with one group remains a single island. Adaptive follows window state independently on each output, while Morph combines the panel into a centered hub with expandable workspace, media and status views.

Most panels default to 36 logical pixels high, Morph to 34, and detached styles use 8-pixel margins unless your configuration overrides them. The packaged configuration includes its own geometry overrides. For the complete options and examples, see the panel configuration guide.

panel "main" {
    edge "top"
    style "floating"
    geometry { height 36; edge-margin 8; window-clearance 4; }
    start {
        group "navigation" {
            item "overview" kind="overview" overflow="never"
            item "workspaces" kind="workspaces" style="dots" overflow="never"
        }
    }
    center {
        group "title" {
            item "title" kind="focused-window" overflow="never"
        }
    }
    end {
        group "status" {
            item "quick-settings" kind="quick-settings"
            item "battery" kind="battery" percentage=#true
            item "clock" kind="clock" representation="compact"
        }
    }
}

If you omit the panel block, Ferese uses its default composition; if you write one, its groups and items define the contents, and empty zones stay empty. Only one panel block is accepted, and group and item IDs must be unique within it. Use edge "bottom" to move the same arrangement to the bottom, with popups opening toward the desktop and edge-relative corners mirroring vertically.

Status controls

status key	Type	Default	Meaning
keybinding-guide	boolean	true	Show the active shortcut guide at login until disabled in Settings → Keyboard & mouse → Shortcuts.
low-battery-threshold	integer 0–100	20	Warning-color threshold
settings-command	argument array	["ferese-settings"]	Settings launcher; [] hides the action

Configure the panel in Panel & Shell or its KDL block, as described in the panel guide. The panel's appearance applies to every group, while popup and notification backgrounds follow the shared shell theme. Transparent gaps between islands pass clicks through to the windows beneath.

Now Playing

The Media item can show artwork, the track title and a play/pause button wherever you place it in the panel. Click the artwork or title to open playback controls for MPRIS players; Morph presents playback in its Music view. Scroll over the control to change the player's volume, or middle-click to raise its window when supported. The menu has previous/next buttons, a seek slider when supported, and a player chooser. It uses the same colors, transparency and animations as the other bar menus.

Automatic selection prefers the player that most recently started playing. When none is playing, it selects the most recently active paused player. Players already running at startup have no known activity order; ties use their bus names. Stopped players hide the control. Pin a player through the chooser to keep it selected, or ignore it to exclude it. These choices last until that player leaves the bus or the media service reconnects. Choose automatically clears the pin.

The bar and media keys share one MPRIS monitor. Playback updates come from D-Bus signals. Progress updates only while the menu is open and playback is running: once a second, or every three seconds on battery. Album art loads while the bar or menu is visible, on a worker with download, decode and cache limits. A placeholder keeps its space while loading or when art is unavailable.

The default Play/Pause, Next and Previous keys use media-play-pause, media-next and media-previous. These actions take no arguments. Custom bindings can use them too:

binding "Super+P" "media-play-pause"

Inspect players or control the selected one from the terminal:

feresectl media
feresectl media play-pause
feresectl media next
feresectl media previous
feresectl media pin org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.example
feresectl media ignore org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.example
feresectl media unignore org.mpris.MediaPlayer2.example
feresectl media auto

unignore restores an ignored player even when the bar control is hidden. Apps without MPRIS support do not appear here.

Login items and locking

autostart key	Type	Default	Meaning
command	nonempty argument array	required	Foreground process, not a self-daemonizing command
enabled	boolean	true	Start service
restart	boolean	true	Restart after exit, with a five-second retry delay
nested	boolean	false	Also run in nested previews

Unchanged services keep running on reload; removed/disabled items stop. To lock after five minutes and before sleep:

autostart {
    command "swayidle" "-w" "timeout" "300" "ferese-lock" "before-sleep" "ferese-lock" "lock" "ferese-lock"
}

The locked display dims after 30 seconds and sleeps after 120 seconds of inactivity. Settings → Lock screen changes lock-screen.dim-after-seconds and lock-screen.sleep-after-seconds; zero disables each action. Input wakes the display without unlocking. Display sleep does not suspend the computer.

ferese-lock is the native PAM-authenticated locker. It follows your wallpaper, colors, font and shell corner radius. Its command returns successfully only after the compositor confirms the lock; the UI keeps running until authentication succeeds. --foreground keeps the command attached to its UI process.

Use ferese-lock --preview for an ordinary window that never locks or checks a password. See Native locker for setup and verification. Test real unlock in a nested compositor before enabling automatic locking. A crashed locker leaves the session locked; recovery requires ending that session from another TTY.

Idle inhibition

Ferese keeps the session awake during fullscreen playback when an application reports Playing through MPRIS. Pausing or stopping playback releases this automatic inhibition. A window must have content visible on an awake display; switching away, closing it, locking the session or sleeping its display releases inhibition too.

Disable the default fullscreen playback policy with:

idle-inhibit {
    fullscreen-playback #false
}

Use window rules for presentations, games or other apps that should keep the session awake while visible:

window-rule app-id="org.example.Presentation" idle-inhibit="visible"

idle-inhibit rule	Behavior
visible	Inhibit while visible, regardless of playback state
fullscreen	Inhibit while visible and fullscreen
playing	Inhibit while visible and its MPRIS player reports Playing
fullscreen-playing	Inhibit while visible, fullscreen and its MPRIS player reports Playing
none	Disable automatic inhibition for this window

MPRIS identifies an application, not an individual video window. Ferese matches the player's process ID first, then its DesktopEntry against the window's app ID. If several windows match, automatic playback inhibition stays off. MPRIS also does not distinguish audio from video, so fullscreen audio playback can inhibit too. Players without MPRIS can request inhibition through the existing Wayland or portal protocols; a fullscreen window alone does not prove playback.

These settings control automatic inhibition. They do not override an application's own Wayland or portal request, and they do not block manual locking or suspend. Run feresectl idle-inhibition to inspect the current inhibition state and discovered players. Changes take effect on config reload.

Optional session protocols

These are launch-time environment switches, not KDL keys. Enable only for trusted clients: FERESE_ENABLE_INPUT_METHOD=1, FERESE_ENABLE_SHORTCUT_INHIBIT=1, FERESE_ENABLE_SCREENCOPY=1. The installed session launcher enables screencopy for screenshots unless FERESE_ENABLE_SCREENCOPY=0 is explicitly set in its environment. Setting it to 0 disables every path that can read the screen, including the built-in screenshot command, not just the Wayland protocol. A session launched by hand rather than through ferese-session needs FERESE_ENABLE_SCREENCOPY=1 in its environment for screenshots to work. Text input is available by default; Ctrl+Alt+Escape releases an active shortcut inhibitor. Use feresectl --help for runtime control commands.

Shell rounding is controlled in Settings → Appearance → Shell corner radius. The shell and compositor use the same squircle profile for fills, borders, shadows and blur masks. Small controls cap the radius to fit their size; circles and pills keep circular outlines. The measured profile has small tangent and curvature discontinuities at its internal segment joins. Window rounding remains under Settings → Windows. Shell rounding comes from theme.geometry.shell-radius, which defaults to 14 px. Panel corners follow their selected style and height, with optional overrides in the panel configuration.

X11 support (xwayland-satellite)

Ferese can run legacy X11-only applications through xwayland-satellite.

xwayland {
    enabled #true
    startup  on-demand
    path     "xwayland-satellite"
}

Key	Values	Default	Meaning
enabled	true / false	true	Run the bridge at all. false is a complete opt-out.
startup	on-demand / eager	on-demand	on-demand starts Satellite the first time an application connects to the X11 socket. eager starts it during session startup.
path	path to an executable	xwayland-satellite	Which binary to run.

These keys require a new session. Reloading configuration does not restart or reallocate the X11 service; feresectl xwayland status reports restart_required when the running configuration no longer matches the file.

Requirements and failure behavior

xwayland-satellite and an Xwayland binary it can find must be installed. Satellite must be built with its systemd feature enabled (cargo build --release --features systemd); that feature sends the READY=1 notification Ferese waits for. Upstream's default feature set is empty, so a default build never sends it and every start ends in a startup failure after Ferese's fixed 10-second budget, even though the process is running. Being spawned is not readiness. If any of these are missing, the session still starts as a normal Wayland desktop and feresectl xwayland status explains why X11 is unavailable. Ferese never publishes a DISPLAY value that does not work, so applications fail cleanly instead of hanging against an endpoint that accepts nothing.

In a nested session, Ferese's own environment is preserved for backend initialization, but applications it launches receive the new Ferese endpoints. The host's DISPLAY is never exported to the activation environment of a nested session, so it cannot leak into services started by your login session.

Diagnostics and recovery

feresectl xwayland status
feresectl xwayland retry

status reports whether the service is idle, starting, running, backing off, or failed, plus the display, the Satellite PID, and whether readiness was verified. A failed service is not restarted automatically: Ferese retries a small bounded number of times, then stops and waits, so a broken binary cannot produce a restart loop. Run feresectl xwayland retry once the cause is fixed. The snapshot never contains the X11 cookie, so it is safe to paste into a bug report.

retry can also refuse to run. If the previous service group cannot be proven gone — for example it survived the stop sequence — Ferese keeps its cleanup record instead of starting a second generation that would compete with survivors for the same display, and the retry fails with a message naming what still holds the X11 display. The endpoint is not republished in the meantime. Run the retry again once that group has finished exiting.

Each start uses a fresh, private notification socket and only a READY=1 message from the Satellite process that was actually spawned is accepted, so a stale or unrelated notification cannot be mistaken for readiness.

Limitations

• X11 applications are ordinary Wayland windows as far as layout, focus, and window rules are concerned. Rules match the application identity Satellite reports, so they are configured the same way as for native clients.
• Native Wayland preferences are kept as they are. Ferese does not force GTK, Qt, Firefox, or Electron onto X11 to demonstrate support.
• Portal dialogs requested with an x11: parent are shown unparented. The chooser or consent prompt still opens and authorization is unchanged; Ferese does not yet translate an X11 window ID into a Wayland export, and inventing a parent would be a security problem.
• Per-monitor fractional scaling of X11 applications depends on the selected Satellite build and its Xsettings policy. Text sharpness, pointer coordinates, and popup placement should be checked on each output profile rather than assumed.
• Drag and drop between native and X11 applications depends on the Satellite build and is not part of the initial support claim.
• Sandboxed applications may need explicit permission to reach the display. A flatpak with only fallback-x11 gets no X11 socket inside a Wayland session and cannot read the private XAUTHORITY file under $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR, so it exits without a window while the service itself reports healthy. See Sandboxed applications.

Power and logout

Power actions use a centered confirmation. Super+Shift+E and feresectl request-logout ask to log out. feresectl exit ends the session immediately.