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. All supported configuration sections are listed below; desktop widgets covers the complete clock and sticky-note fields separately.

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
    }
}

Repeated binding, window-rule, output-profile, output, note and autostart nodes describe lists of settings. Bindings accept positional keys/action/argument; profiles, outputs and notes accept a positional name, match or ID. Other fields can be properties or child nodes. Autostart accepts its command as positional arguments. Duplicate fields are rejected. The dotted paths in the reference tables below describe nested sections.

Settings preserves comments and custom fields when editing, while normalizing indentation. Runtime configuration uses KDL only. KDL parsing requires Rust 1.95 or newer to build.

Saving and validation

Settings saves automatically: text on Enter/focus loss, sliders when released. Undo restores the previous save; Reload picks up external edits without merging unfinished drafts. Wallpaper browsing needs zenity; a path can also be entered. Settings keeps config.kdl.settings-backup before saving.

File edits reload automatically, including atomic editor saves. Invalid changes keep the last working configuration. Appearance, wallpaper, motion, input, bindings, rules, layouts, displays, widgets and login items update live.

feresectl reload-config          # reload with error feedback
ferese --check-config PATH       # validate without applying
ferese-settings --config PATH   # edit a separate preview config

Defaults below are built-in defaults, not your personal or packaged overrides. Dimensions are logical pixels unless noted; numbers must be finite. Optional values are omitted, not null. Colors use #RRGGBB or #RRGGBBAA. Live config is limited to 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 scrolls only to reveal the focused window. center_on_focus centers it. paged packs columns into viewport-sized pages: halves form pairs, thirds form triples; mixed widths and client minimum sizes determine actual boundaries. Changing default width preserves manually resized columns.

Motion

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.mass	number > 0	1	Window-motion spring mass
animations.spring.stiffness	number > 0	700	Spring stiffness
animations.spring.damping	number ≥ 0	53	Spring damping
animations.viewport_spring.mass	number > 0	1	Scrolling spring mass
animations.viewport_spring.stiffness	number > 0	320	Scrolling stiffness
animations.viewport_spring.damping_ratio	number > 0	1	1 is critically damped

Appearance

Settings → Appearance offers six presets: Ferese Blue (default), Monochrome, Gruvbox, Dracula, Ayu Light, and Monokai. The two-row gallery previews each palette on a miniature desktop; a checkmark identifies the active preset. Ferese Blue uses the README logo's #3D7BE6. Each preset coordinates surfaces, text, menu-bar colors, borders and the focus ring. Ayu Light also switches native Settings controls to light styling. Presets preserve wallpaper, typography, geometry and opacity settings; colors remain individually editable.

The community palettes are desktop adaptations with text shades adjusted for readability. Sources: Gruvbox, Dracula, Ayu, and classic Monokai. Marketplace install counts informed the shortlist; they are not a measurement of desktop users. Monochrome and Gruvbox replace similar blue palettes to keep these six visually distinct.

Section / key	Type	Default	Meaning
appearance.corner_radius	number ≥ 0	unset	Legacy fallback for shell radius
appearance.inactive_dim.enabled	boolean	false	Dim unfocused windows
appearance.inactive_dim.amount	number 0–1	0.15	Darkening strength
appearance.inactive_dim.duration_ms	number ≥ 0	150	Dimming and focus-ring transition; 0 snaps
theme.typography.font_family	string	system sans-serif	Shell, Settings and overview font
theme.background.path	string	bundled Ferese wallpaper	Wallpaper image path; an existing selection overrides the default
theme.background.mode	"fill", "fit"	"fill"	Crop or letterbox
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.blur_radius	number ≥ 0	12	Translucent backdrop blur, capped at 32; 0 disables

theme.colors key	Default	Meaning
surface_base	"#111821"	Material/card base color
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

Ferese derives the text and icon color for filled accent controls from the configured theme. It keeps the configured text color and, when necessary, shades the accent fill slightly to reach a 4.5:1 contrast ratio. If that would require a large color change, it chooses black or white instead. The same rule is shared by native dialogs, settings selections, and notification badges. Hover, pressed, and disabled accent-button states use the same policy. Small filled controls resolve accent transparency against their theme surface so wallpaper cannot make their labels unreadable. No separate per-application color setting is needed. The target follows normal-text contrast guidance.

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	All shell surfaces, cards, widgets and interaction backgrounds; 0 makes them square
top_bar_height	number > 0	28	Menu-bar height
top_bar_margin_top	integer ≥ 0	0	Space above bar
top_bar_window_gap	integer ≥ 0	0	Clearance below bar
top_bar_margin_horizontal	integer ≥ 0	0	Bar side margins
top_bar_radius	number ≥ 0	unset	Legacy fallback for shell radius
panel_padding	number ≥ 0	12	Bar inner padding
control_gap	number ≥ 0	12	Right-side control spacing

Section / key	Type	Default	Meaning
theme.surface.bar.background	color	"#1C202EF2"	Shell fallback background; compositor materials use surface_base
theme.surface.bar.text_primary	color	"#F0F3FA"	Bar text/icons
theme.surface.bar.text_muted	color	"#AAB4C7"	Inactive bar 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.

Optional theme.focus_ring.gradient and theme.border.gradient use the same keys: required from and to colors, and angle (number, default 0). Angles are clockwise: 0 is left-to-right, 90 top-to-bottom. Omit the gradient section for solid accent or border colors.

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

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.

Three-finger swipes navigate on release: 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. Cancelled, short and diagonal swipes do nothing. Navigation pauses while locked, during window grabs, or when an application inhibits shortcuts.

Assign swipes in Settings → 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

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
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"

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+Tab overview; Super+Shift+S area screenshot; Print Screen whole-screen screenshot; Super+Shift+E immediate logout.

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 it from the nearest corner. These work even when an app has no title bar or resize border.

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.

The editor window is sized from the captured image rather than the output, so a small area selection does not open a large window. Sizing is advisory: the compositor floats the editor at whatever size Satty requests, clamped to the workspace.

A capture is assembled from the readback each output produces when it is next redrawn, so a request is abandoned if an output has not been redrawn within 30 seconds. That is reported as an error rather than a partial or empty image, and the request holds no resources once it is abandoned. Nothing is left in the runtime directory: feresctl screenshot writes a private file that the caller opens and unlinks, and any file a dead client leaves behind is reclaimed after an hour.

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
fullscreen	boolean	Leave fullscreen state unchanged

At least one matcher is required; supplied matchers must all match. Rules apply in order, with later fields overriding earlier ones. Dimensions imply floating when floating is omitted. Floating apps without dimensions choose their own size and open centered on the output. Title changes do not trigger new rules; config rule changes apply to existing windows.

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

Displays

output-profile has a required unique nonempty name and one or more output-profile → output entries. The first profile whose listed monitors are connected wins. Find connector names and persistent identities using feresectl get-outputs.

output-profile → output key	Type	Default
match	nonempty connector or persistent identity string	required; unique within profile
enabled	boolean	true
mode	"WIDTHxHEIGHT" or "WIDTHxHEIGHT@HZ"	Preferred mode
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. Unspecified connected displays stay enabled with defaults. Disabling every usable output is rejected.

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

With a usable external display, closing the lid disables internal panels. Workspaces move to a remaining display and return when their original output returns. Ferese does not change the system's suspend policy.

Status controls

status key	Type	Default	Meaning
keybinding-guide	boolean	true	Show the active shortcut guide at login until disabled in Settings → Shortcuts.
window_title	boolean	true	Focused window title in the bar center when space allows
battery_percentage	boolean	true	Show percentage beside icon
low_battery_threshold	integer 0–100	20	Warning-color threshold
settings_command	argument array	["ferese-settings"]	Settings launcher; [] hides the action

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.

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.

Notifications

Settings → Notifications controls popups, Do Not Disturb, and the default timeout. See Notifications for KDL options and app behavior.

A single-output session starts with workspace 1. Numbered workspace shortcuts create workspaces on demand; switching forward past the last workspace also creates the next one when the current workspace contains windows. Empty workspaces are cleaned up automatically, keeping at most one empty workspace in addition to any empty workspace currently shown on another display. Additional displays receive their own workspace.

Shell rounding is controlled in Settings → Appearance → Shell corner radius. Small controls cap the radius to fit their size. Window rounding remains under Settings → Windows. theme.geometry.shell_radius takes precedence over the old appearance.corner_radius and then theme.geometry.top_bar_radius keys; when none are set, the shell uses 14 px. Legacy clock/note radius fields no longer override shell rounding.

Power actions use a centered system confirmation. The exit key binding (Super+Shift+E by default) requests logout confirmation; feresectl request-logout does the same. feresectl exit remains an immediate administrative exit.