Skip to content
Hue edited this page Aug 2, 2026 · 6 revisions

wf-shell

wf-shell is a collection of applications that can be used to build a fully functional desktop based around wayfire:

  • wf-panel, with widgets with various functionalities you would expect a desktop to have on quick access
  • wf-dock, to show opened windows, navigate to them, and (un)collapse them
  • wf-locker, a stylish and feature-full screen locker
  • wf-background, a simple background that can cycle through images
  • wf-stream-chooser, which can be used with xdg-desktop-portal-wlr to choose a window or screen to stream

Configuration

The wf-shell components use a common config file located (by default) at XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wf-shell.ini (so, most often resolves to ~/.config/wf-shell.ini, which is a fallback), and the configuration is hot reloaded when the configuration file changes.

An example configuration can be found in the file wf-shell.ini.example, alongside with comments what each option does. For an exhaustive breakdown of every option, check out the github wiki

The GUI WCM can edit the configuration and show descriptions for the options.

Building

wf-shell needs the core wayland libraries and protocols (wayland-devel and wayland-protocols-devel for Fedora), gtkmm-4.0 and wf-config

Certain functionality is optional:

  • panel wp-mixer widget, built if pipewire and wireplumber libraries are found
  • panel/locker pulseaudio volume widgets, built if libpulse is found
  • panel/locker weather widgets, built only if specified

To build and install:

git clone https://github.com/WayfireWM/wf-shell && cd wf-shell
meson build --prefix=/usr --buildtype=release
ninja -C build
sudo ninja -C build install

Screenshots

Current default look and configuration: Panel & Background demo

Past default look: Old look

Clone this wiki locally