Files
omarchy/manual/04-navigation.md
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1498718969 Add a floating mode with titlebars to the workspace layout cycle (#14482)
* Let the workspace layout test's Lua assertions fail the suite

Lua 5.5's standalone interpreter exits 0 when the script that raised the error came in on stdin, and exits 1 for the same error in a script file. The block here was piped in through a heredoc, so every assertion in it reported as passing however wrong the value was: changing the expected layout to one the toggle never writes still left the file green.

* Add a floating mode to the workspace layout cycle

Super + L cycled a workspace between dwindle and scrolling. It now carries on into floating, where every window on the workspace floats.

Floating cannot be a third `layout` on the workspace rule. Hyprland has no layout by that name and accepts one anyway: `hl.workspace_rule({ layout = "floating" })` returns ok and silently leaves the workspace on dwindle, exactly as a misspelt name does. So the mode floats the windows themselves, through the same `float` dispatcher SUPER + T uses.

Ending the mode has to tile the windows the mode floated and only those, so each one is tagged with `omarchy-mode-floated`. A window already floating when the mode reaches it -- an app with a float rule of its own, a dialog, one popped out with SUPER + T -- is left unclaimed and is still floating when the mode ends. The tag lives on the window rather than in a table here: it dies with the window, follows it between workspaces, and survives the config reload that plugging in a monitor performs, none of which a table on this side would do. A pinned window is left alone entirely, because tiling one unpins it as well.

Windows arrive on a workspace three ways and a window rule only covers one of them, so the mode watches events: window.open for what opens there, window.move_to_workspace for what is carried in, and the same event for what is carried back out, which gives up the floating the mode gave it rather than staying floating on a workspace that tiles. Every tiled window is claimed before any of them is floated, because floating one member of a group floats the rest, and claiming as it went would find those already floating and leave them stranded.

The mode is read back from the saved file rather than from the compositor. Hyprland reports a workspace's tiled layout and floating is not one, so a floating workspace still answers dwindle or scrolling; trusting that answer would skip a step of the cycle. A file saved before floating existed names a layout rather than a mode and falls through to what Hyprland reports, so the cycle keeps working and the next press rewrites it.

Two faults in the old script had to go first, because saving the mode makes both persistent. Named workspaces report a negative id, which passed the `^-?[0-9]+$` guard, and Hyprland reads a leading "-" as a selector relative to the current workspace: pressing Super + L on a named workspace reconfigured workspace 1 instead, and would now save a file that did it again at every login. And the saved state was written under $HOME/.local/state while the Hyprland side reads XDG_STATE_HOME, which also had to reach package.path: the loader lists that directory but loads the files by module name, so a state home anywhere else listed the saved layouts and then loaded same-named ones from the home directory.

Saving is checked too. The mode reaching the compositor and the mode reaching disk are separate things that can fail separately, and a save that failed silently would leave the next press reading a file that never got written, cycling between two modes and never reaching the third.

The guard against named workspaces stops new files being written, but an earlier version already wrote them, and they go on being loaded at every login. A migration removes the saved layouts named for a negative id.

The keyword fallback is gone. `hyprctl keyword` refuses a Lua configuration outright -- "keyword can't work with non-legacy parsers. Use eval." -- and exits 0 while doing so, so as a fallback it neither worked nor reported that it had not. A failed apply now says so and saves nothing, rather than announcing a layout the screen does not show and restoring it at the next login.

Co-Authored-By: Codex XHigh <noreply@openai.com>

* Add titlebars, edge snapping, and a window Shelf to floating workspaces

Floating workspaces become a traditional desktop that works with every
theme. Windows get themed titlebars from the omarchy-hyprland-titlebars
plugin, which is loaded only while something floats. Dragging a titlebar
to the left or right edge snaps the window to that half, and dragging it
to the top or double-clicking maximizes it. The window floating mode
places is sized, centered, and cascaded, and floating workspaces focus
on click.

Super + M, or the minus button, sets a window aside on the Shelf, which
works from any workspace and restores the window onto the current one
in that workspace's layout. Float All Workspaces makes floating the
default while Super + L still sets a single workspace's layout.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Bring resize on border to tiling too

* Fix floating mode cleanup, fullscreen windows, and failed Shelf notes

Turning Float All Workspaces off with no workspace layouts left behind
started nothing to give the floated windows back. A window fullscreen
when its workspace began floating now floats once it leaves fullscreen.
A window whose Shelf note cannot be saved stays where it is, and the
titlebars read the theme from where omarchy-theme-set writes it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Place the Shelf on the bar once, instead of on every minimize

Putting it back on each minimize kept a Shelf the user moved where they
put it, but re-added one they had removed. A migration places it once for
existing bars; Super + Alt + M opens the Shelf either way.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Raise titlebars off the window background

A titlebar in the theme's background color ran into the window under it.
It takes the theme's lighter background, the raised surface every theme
defines, and the selection color on themes that make the two the same.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Drop minimizing and edge snapping from floating workspaces

A floating workspace is now titlebars with maximize and close, and nothing
else. The Shelf (its bar widget, panel, commands, notes, Super + M and
Super + Alt + M) goes with the minimize button, and the titlebar plugin's
edge snapping is left off, along with the shell's snap preview.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Stop describing the titlebar package as snapping

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Name web app windows in their launchers

Chromium names a web app window after its URL, and titles it with the page
title or just the domain. StartupWMClass ties the window to its launcher,
so the titlebar plugin can show the launcher's Name instead: WhatsApp
rather than web.whatsapp.com. New web apps, the shipped ones, and existing
launchers (through a migration) all carry it.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Drop the titlebar package comment from the base list

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Show the workspace layout in the bar and cycle it on click

The focused workspace's mark is a square for dwindle, a triangle for
scrolling, and a circle for floating, and clicking it cycles the layout
as Super + L does. Both layout toggles ask the bar to read the new mode.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Show scrolling as a circle and floating as a triangle

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Move the look of the desktop to Trigger > Appearance

Menu Bar, Battery Percentage, Workspace Layout, Window Gaps, Animations,
and 1-Window Ratio change how the desktop looks rather than switching a
behavior, so they leave Trigger > Toggle for their own menu.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Choose a default workspace layout instead of floating everything

Trigger > Appearance > Workspace Layout sets the layout of every workspace
without one of its own: Tiling, Scrolling, or Floating. A tiled default
is Hyprland's own layout, and a floating one is the floating mode. It
replaces Float All Workspaces, which also overrode and set aside the
layouts workspaces had been given with Super + L.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Title the workspace layout menu Default Workspace Layout

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Use the animation icon for Appearance > Animations

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Open clipboard history from Trigger

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Leave edge resizing to looknfeel on floating workspaces

looknfeel now resizes from borders everywhere, so floating workspaces
only need to switch pointer focus to click.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Convert saved workspace layout rules to modes

Released versions saved a workspace's layout as a plain workspace rule,
which names no mode, so a floating default would override a workspace
set to scrolling, and the bar and Super + L would misread it. A migration
rewrites those files as modes.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Cycle workspace layouts backwards with Super + Alt + L

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Test the Trigger > Appearance split and Clipboard History placement

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Decode escaped web app URLs before naming their windows

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Describe the workspace widget's layout mark and click

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Let a workspace cycled onto the default follow it again

Once Super + L gave a workspace a layout of its own, it kept it for good,
so a later change of the default never reached it. Cycling onto the
default layout now forgets the workspace's own instead of saving it.
Without a saved default, the default is Hyprland's own layout, which
the user's looknfeel may have set.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

---------

Co-authored-by: David Heinemeier Hansson <david@hey.com>
Co-authored-by: Codex XHigh <noreply@openai.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Opus 5.5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-11 08:20:45 +02:00

6.1 KiB

Navigation

Everything in Omarchy happens via the keyboard — EVERYTHING! When the system first starts, you literally can't do a thing with the mouse alone. But you can hit Super + Space to reveal the Omarchy Menu and from here you to do just about everything.

But the Omarchy menu is not even intended to be the main way to operate the system most of the time. We can get faster than that! All the most important applications are bound directly to individual hotkeys. You start the terminal with Super + Return and a browser with Super + Shift + Return. Try doing one after the other, and you'll see the magic of Hyprland's tiling in action:

navigation-browser-terminal

You can then hit Super + J to stack them on top of each other instead of side by side:

navigation-stacked

Hit Super + J again to return them to their side-by-side positions. Then try Super + Shift + Arrow Right while on the browser to swap the windows.

Now try Super + Ctrl + T to start the Activity monitor. That'll appear as a floating window. You can tile it using Super + T (and hit that again to make it floating again). Now press Super + Shift + F to open the files manager. You'll have a neat four-way setup:

navigation-fourway-tiling

You navigate between the window you want to be active with Super + Arrow. This will switch focus and move the cursor to the center of the new application.

If you hit Super + Shift + 2, you'll move the current focused application onto the second workspace. Super + Shift + 1 moves it back. (And Super + Shift + Alt + 2 will move the current focused application onto the second workspace without switching to it).

If you hold down Super and use the mouse to click on a window, you'll be able to rearrange where it sits. If you hold Super and use the right button on the mouse, you can freely resize the window.

You close a window on Super + W or Super + Q (and close all windows on Ctrl + Alt + Delete).

You can also go full screen with Super + F or even just full-width (keeping the top bar) with Super + Alt + F or full-screen within a window with Super + Ctrl + F (good for YouTube!).

Dwindle vs scrolling layout

Omarchy's default layout is called dwindle. It keeps all the windows you open on a single workspace visible at all time, even if it has to shrink them down.

navigation-dwindle-layout

But you can also choose to turn a workspace into the scrolling layout where windows are lined up side-by-side, beyond the visible edge of the display. You turn a single workspace into this layout via Super + L.

Pressing Super + L again turns the workspace floating, where windows overlap freely and you place them yourself, and a third press returns it to dwindle. Super + Alt + L goes through them the other way. A window that floats anyway — one you popped out with Super + T, or an app that always opens floating — keeps floating when the workspace goes back to tiling. The top bar marks the workspace you're on with its layout: a square for dwindle, a circle for scrolling, and a triangle for floating. Clicking that mark cycles the layout too.

navigation-scrolling-layout

The choice is per workspace, and it sticks. So you can keep workspace 1 on dwindle for browsing and workspace 2 on scrolling for code, and they'll come back that way after a restart.

If you wish to use the scrolling layout as the default, you can set that in ~/.config/hypr/looknfeel.lua:

hl.config({
  general = {
    layout = "scrolling",
  },
})

Floating workspaces

A floating workspace works like a traditional desktop: windows overlap, and you move and size them yourself. Each window gets a titlebar in your theme's colors, with buttons to maximize and close. Click a window to bring it forward. Resize it from any edge or corner. Double-click a titlebar to maximize the window while keeping the top bar in view, and again to get its old size back.

New workspaces, and any you haven't given a layout of their own with Super + L, use the default layout. Pick it under Trigger > Appearance > Workspace Layout: Tiling, Scrolling, or Floating. omarchy-hyprland-workspace-layout-default scrolling sets it from a terminal.

Grouping windows

Windows can be grouped using Super + G. Once you're in a group, every window you start while that's active will belong to the group. You can move between these grouped windows using Super + Ctrl + Arrow Left/Right or Super + Alt + 1/2/3/4 to go directly to grouped window in order.

You can move a window out of the grouping with Super + Alt + G or disassemble the entire group by hitting Super + G again. Finally, you can move windows outside the group into it with Super + Alt + Arrows.

Popping windows

You can pop a window out of its workspace allocation with Super + O. That'll pin it as a floating window that follows you on whatever workspace you go to. Great for video players and the like.

navigation-popped-window

Scratchpad workspace

Finally, there's a special scratchpad workspace that drops down over whatever workspace you're currently on, much like a Quake console. Toggle it with Super + Grave or Super + S, and place a window there using Super + Shift + Grave or Super + Alt + S.

It works especially well for a terminal running an agent, or for controls you want to interact with quickly without leaving the current workspace. To move a window off the scratchpad, send it directly to another workspace with something like Super + Shift + 1.

While the scratchpad holds a single window, it drops down as a centered panel rather than spanning the screen. Put a second app on it and it goes back to the full width, so the two have room to sit side by side.

It takes some getting used to!

It takes a little while to get used to navigating your desktop like this, but once you do, it'll be hard to go back to a traditional mouse-driven desktop experience!