GitHub - noirbizarre/snypr: A GTK4-based screenshot, annotation, and live-drawing tool for Hyprland

Capture, annotate, and draw on Wayland

A GTK4-based screenshot, annotation, and live-drawing tool for Hyprland.

Snypr pulls together what currently requires three separate tools on a Wayland desktop:

Capture — like grim / HyprCapture, but native and integrated.
Annotate — like Satty: arrow, rectangle, ellipse, line, highlight, blur, text, freehand, numbered marker, redact, crop. A built-in Select mode (active when no tool is) moves, resizes, and re-edits shapes you've already drawn.
Draw live on the screen — like Draw-On-Gnome but on wlroots / Hyprland, ideal for streaming and Google Meet presentations.

Screen capture talks the zwlr_screencopy_manager_v1 Wayland protocol directly; UI is GTK4 with gtk4-layer-shell, and the annotation canvas uses GSK render nodes for GPU-accelerated drawing.

Status

The four subcommands are wired end-to-end. All eleven annotation tools (Rect, Ellipse, Arrow, Line, Highlight, Freehand, Number, Text, Blur, Redact, Crop) render through GSK render nodes on screen and flatten to PNG through Cairo on save. With no tool active, a Select mode picks an existing shape to move it, resize it via drag handles, re-edit text, or delete it.

Subcommand	Status
`screenshot`	Capture pipeline, all selection modes, file/clipboard sinks, `--per-output`, `--edit` opens the in-place annotation overlay before sinks
`draw`	Live overlay with pointer passthrough toggle, exclusive keyboard, shared tools; Ctrl+S saves via the zone selector
`daemon`	IPC server: `Ping`, `Screenshot`, `DrawToggle`, `PassthroughToggle`; tray (StatusNotifierItem) with `--systray`
`doctor`	Markdown diagnostic report covering version, environment, configuration and live capability probes (Hyprland IPC, wlr-screencopy, daemon socket)

Build

mise run build           # cargo build
mise run test            # cargo nextest run
mise run lint            # cargo clippy --all-targets --all-features -- -Dclippy::all
mise run fmt             # cargo fmt --all
mise run cover           # cargo llvm-cov nextest --all-features
mise run spell           # typos

Build dependencies

Arch Linux (primary target):

sudo pacman -S --needed gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell wayland pkgconf

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libgtk4-layer-shell-dev libwayland-dev pkg-config

Runtime dependencies

A wlroots-based Wayland compositor exposing the zwlr_screencopy_manager_v1 protocol — Hyprland is the primary target; sway, river, and other wlroots compositors should also work.

GTK4 stack at runtime.

Arch Linux:

sudo pacman -S --needed gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell wayland

Debian / Ubuntu:

sudo apt install libgtk-4-1 libgtk4-layer-shell0 libwayland-client0

Optional, only when running snypr daemon --systray (the tray feature): a StatusNotifierItem host such as waybar (with the tray module), swaync, or ironbar.
Optional, only when the notify feature surfaces errors as desktop toasts (default): a notification daemon implementing org.freedesktop.Notifications, e.g. mako, dunst, or swaync.

No external CLI helpers are invoked: hyprctl, grim, slurp, and wl-copy are not required. Hyprland IPC is spoken directly over the command socket, Wayland capture goes through zwlr_screencopy_manager_v1, and clipboard writes use wl-clipboard-rs. One-shot invocations briefly fork a detached child to keep serving the Wayland selection after the CLI exits — the daemon publishes in-process and skips that fork.

Install

Arch Linux

paru -S snypr-bin   # prebuilt binary, no compilation
paru -S snypr       # built from the release tarball
paru -S snypr-git   # built from the main branch

snypr-bin is the recommended path: it installs the binary published with each release, along with the desktop entries, icons and manpage.

Other distributions

Ubuntu packaging is planned through hyprland-ppa. Until then, build from source with cargo install --path . (or mise run setup), which drops the binary in ~/.cargo/bin — note the launcher integration below assumes a proper package, so you will need to install the desktop files and icons yourself.

Release assets

Each release publishes:

Asset	Contents
`snypr-<version>-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu.tar.gz`	Prebuilt binary plus the desktop entries, icons and manpage, laid out as a `$PREFIX` tree
`snypr-<version>.tar.gz`	Source tarball — what packagers should consume
`SHA256SUMS`	Checksums for both

The prebuilt binary is built on and supported for Arch Linux only. Snypr links GTK4 and gtk4-layer-shell dynamically, so it requires a matching GTK4 stack (GTK ≥ 4.14 and gtk4-layer-shell ≥ 1.0) on the target system. It may work elsewhere, but that is not a promise we can keep — build from source instead.

For packagers

The source tree ships these artifacts ready to install under $PREFIX (typically /usr):

Path	Provenance
`$PREFIX/bin/snypr`	`cargo build --release` → `target/release/snypr`
`$PREFIX/share/icons/hicolor/<size>/apps/noirbizar.re.Snypr.png`	`data/icons/hicolor/<size>/apps/…` — sizes 16, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256, 512
`$PREFIX/share/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/noirbizar.re.Snypr.svg`	`data/icons/hicolor/scalable/apps/…` — preferred by consumers that scale
`$PREFIX/share/applications/noirbizar.re.Snypr.desktop`	Standalone launcher with Screenshot/Draw actions
`$PREFIX/share/applications/noirbizar.re.Snypr.Daemon.desktop`	Visible launcher for `snypr daemon --systray`
`$PREFIX/share/man/man1/snypr.1`	`docs/man/snypr.1`
`$PREFIX/share/licenses/$pkgname/LICENSE`	`LICENSE`
`$PREFIX/share/doc/$pkgname/README.md`	`README.md`

After installation, package post-install hooks should run update-desktop-database against $PREFIX/share/applications and gtk-update-icon-cache -qtf $PREFIX/share/icons/hicolor. On Arch both are handled by the desktop-file-utils and hicolor-icon-theme hooks, both of which the PKGBUILDs in packaging/aur/ list in depends, so they carry no .install file.

The standalone .desktop exposes three launcher actions (visible via right-click in most launchers): Take Screenshot (region), Take Full-Screen Screenshot, and Draw on Screen. The daemon entry (noirbizar.re.Snypr.Daemon.desktop) carries X-GNOME-Autostart-Enabled=true, so users who prefer XDG autostart over the Hyprland snippet below can symlink it into ~/.config/autostart/.

Usage

# Full-screen capture, stitched across all outputs, saved as PNG.
snypr screenshot --full --to file=/tmp/shot.png

# Default sinks come from ~/.config/snypr/config.toml; without --to,
# the screenshot is written to $XDG_PICTURES_DIR/Screenshots/.
snypr screenshot --full

# One file per output. `{output}` is inserted into the filename template
# automatically when the template does not already contain it.
snypr screenshot --full --per-output

# Specific output by name, copied to the clipboard.
snypr screenshot --output DP-1 --to clipboard

# Send the screenshot to both the regular clipboard and the X11-style primary
# selection (middle-click paste). Per-sink form: --to clipboard=primary.
snypr screenshot --full --to clipboard --clipboard-type both

# Focused monitor, queried over Hyprland IPC.
snypr screenshot --focused

# Currently active window, queried over Hyprland IPC.
snypr screenshot --window

# Explicit region (logical pixels): X,Y,WxH.
snypr screenshot --region 100,200,800x600 --to file

# Open the interactive selector explicitly (also the default with no selection flag).
snypr screenshot --interactive

# Interactive region selector → in-place annotation overlay → sinks.
snypr screenshot --edit --to clipboard --to file

# Live draw-on-screen overlay (see the keybind table below for the full tool list,
# Ctrl+Z undo, P passthrough, Esc quit).
snypr draw --to file --to clipboard --cursor

# Run the daemon (IPC server) on a custom socket path.
snypr daemon --socket /run/user/1000/snypr.sock

# Live overlay opened with pointer passthrough already on (clicks fall through).
snypr draw --passthrough

# Run the daemon (IPC server; add `--systray` for a StatusNotifierItem icon).
snypr daemon

# Take a screenshot via the running daemon instead of spawning a fresh process.
snypr screenshot --full --via-daemon

Interactive selector

The selector (shown by screenshot with no explicit selection flag, or with --interactive) shows a floating toolbar on the focused monitor with four modes — Full, Screen, Window, Region — plus a cursor toggle, a delay spinner, an output-destination switcher, and a Capture button. The toolbar follows keyboard focus: it moves to whichever monitor you focus, while every monitor keeps its dimming overlay. Hold Shift while clicking Capture (the button's icon swaps live) to also open the in-place editor on the captured image; while Shift is held the destination switcher greys out, because the editor that opens carries its own. Whatever destination you picked in the selector seeds that editor's switcher. Keyboard shortcuts: 1/2/3/4 switch modes, drag with the mouse in Region mode, click on a monitor in Screen mode, then press Enter (Capture) or Shift+Enter / Shift+KP_Enter (Capture + Annotate) to commit. Esc cancels.

Editor & overlay keybinds

These are currently fixed and not configurable.

Key	Action
`R`	Rectangle tool
`O`	Ellipse tool
`A`	Arrow tool
`L`	Line tool (no arrowhead)
`H`	Highlight tool
`F`	Freehand tool
`N`	Numbered marker
`T`	Text
`B`	Blur
`X`	Redact (solid black)
`C`	Crop (editor only)
`Ctrl+Z`	Undo last layer
`Ctrl+S` / `Enter`	Save (editor and draw overlay)
`Ctrl+O`	Cycle output destination: file → clipboard → both
`P`	Toggle pointer passthrough (overlay only)
`Ctrl+L`	Clear all layers (overlay only)
`Delete` / `Backspace`	Delete the selected shape (Select mode)
Arrow keys	Nudge the selected shape (`Shift` = larger step)
`Esc`	Deselect (Select mode) / Quit

There is no dedicated Select button: with no tool active, the editor is in Select mode. Click an active tool's button (or press its key again) to deactivate it, and after you commit a shape the editor returns to Select mode automatically.

In Select mode you edit shapes you've already drawn. Click a shape to select it (handles appear), drag its body to move it, or drag a handle to resize it — box shapes get eight handles, Arrow/Line expose their two endpoints, and a numbered marker exposes a radius grip. For text, the corner handles scale the font size while the side handles set a wrap width (so long lines reflow). Double-click a text annotation to re-open its editor in place; Delete / Backspace removes the selection and Esc deselects. Freehand strokes can be selected and moved but not resized.

A color picker (with alpha) and a stroke-style picker sit next to the tool buttons. Each tool remembers its own color/style across switches within a session; the pickers also act on the currently selected shape (or the text being edited), and font size is editable while a text shape is selected or edited. The pickers are disabled for tools whose appearance is hardcoded (Blur, Crop, Redact) and when nothing relevant is selected.

Next to the Save button — and, on the selector, just before Capture — an output-destination switcher shows where the next save will go. It starts on whatever --to (or [output].default_sinks) resolved to, and clicking it — or pressing Ctrl+O — cycles file → clipboard → both. An explicit --to file=PATH target and a pinned --to clipboard=KIND are remembered, so cycling away and back is lossless.

In the draw overlay, Ctrl+S (or Enter, or the toolbar Save button) pops the screenshot zone selector so you choose what part of the screen to capture (region, monitor, window, or full desktop). Because the strokes are already painted on the layer-shell surfaces, the captured PNG naturally contains "desktop + strokes" — no post-processing. The overlay stays alive with strokes intact after saving, so you can keep drawing or save another zone. Sinks come from --to (repeatable; defaults to [output].default_sinks from the config) and can be changed on the fly with the toolbar's output-destination switcher, and --cursor seeds the selector's cursor toggle.

Next to the color picker, a stroke-style picker offers Solid / Dashed / Dotted dash patterns for the outline-rendering tools (Rectangle, Ellipse, Arrow, Line, Freehand). Like the color picker, each tool remembers its own style across switches. The Arrow tool's shaft honours the style while its arrowhead stays solid so it remains a recognisable pointer.

The picker opens GTK's native GtkColorDialog. Placement, sizing, and the resize behaviour when toggling the Custom Color editor are delegated to the compositor — GtkColorDialog does not expose its window to applications. On Hyprland (0.55+, Lua config), add a window rule if you want it to always float and centre:

hl.window_rule({
  match  = { title = "^Pick a Color$" },
  float  = true,
  center = true,
})

Hyprland keybindings

Drop the following into your Hyprland Lua config (e.g. ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua) — adjust paths/mods to taste:

-- Default screenshot (uses the configured defaults from ~/.config/snypr/config.toml).
hl.bind("SUPER + Print", hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr screenshot"))

-- Full desktop, stitched across every output, written to the configured directory.
hl.bind("SUPER + SHIFT + Print",
    hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr screenshot --full --to file"))

-- One PNG per monitor; {output} is inserted into the template automatically.
hl.bind("SUPER + SHIFT + ALT + Print",
    hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr screenshot --full --per-output --to file"))

-- Currently focused monitor (queried over Hyprland IPC), copied to the clipboard.
hl.bind("SUPER + CTRL + Print",
    hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr screenshot --focused --to clipboard"))

-- Currently active window (queried over Hyprland IPC), copied to the clipboard.
hl.bind("SUPER + CTRL + SHIFT + Print",
    hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr screenshot --window --to clipboard"))

-- Live draw-on-screen overlay — ideal for presentations / Google Meet.
-- See the README keybind table for the full tool/action list; Esc quits.
hl.bind("SUPER + ALT + Print", hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr draw"))

-- Toggle pointer passthrough on a running draw overlay. Useful because
-- passthrough mode detaches the surface from the keyboard, so the overlay's
-- own `P` shortcut can't turn passthrough back off — a global keybind can.
hl.bind("SUPER + ALT + P",
    hl.dsp.exec_cmd("snypr draw --via-daemon --toggle-passthrough"))

-- Autostart the daemon (enables `--via-daemon`; add `--systray` for a tray icon).
hl.on("hyprland.start", function()
    hl.exec_cmd("snypr daemon --systray")
end)

Troubleshooting

Pressing the keybind does nothing?

Inspect the actually-registered bind:
```
hyprctl binds | grep -i print
```
The dispatcher must be exec (not exec_cmd — that's the load-time directive). If your config layer (Nix module, etc.) emits exec_cmd inside a bind, Hyprland silently drops it.

Confirm the binary resolves on Hyprland's PATH:

hyprctl dispatch exec "which snypr"
tail -n5 ~/.local/share/hyprland/hyprland.log

Check Hyprland's log for stderr from the spawned snypr process — that's where errors land when launched from a keybind. The optional notify feature (enabled by default) also surfaces fatal errors as a desktop notification.
Add -vv to your bind (e.g. snypr -vv screenshot) to upgrade the snypr log level to trace without needing RUST_LOG.

Environment variables

Variable	Effect
`SNYPR_CONFIG`	Alternative config file path. Equivalent to `--config`.
`SNYPR_LANG`	UI language as a BCP-47 tag. Equivalent to `--lang`.
`RUST_LOG`	Standard `tracing-subscriber` filter. Overridden by `-v` / `-vv`.
`SNYPR_CAPTURE_GRACE_MS`	Milliseconds to wait between dismissing the selector and grabbing pixels (default `30`). Raise it if selector chrome leaks into the capture on a slow compositor.

Configuration

~/.config/snypr/config.toml (every field is optional):

# UI language as a BCP-47 tag. Overridden by `--lang` / `SNYPR_LANG`; when unset,
# falls back to `LC_ALL` / `LC_MESSAGES` / `LANG`, then English. Shipped catalogs: en, fr.
language = "en"

[output]
directory          = "/home/me/Pictures/Screenshots"
filename_template  = "snypr_{date}_{time}_{output}.png"
default_sinks      = ["file", "clipboard"]
use_utc            = false
# PNG compression preset: "fast" (largest, fastest), "balanced" (default), or "best"
# (smallest, ~10x slower than fast). Balanced typically halves file size vs fast.
compression        = "balanced"

[capture]
# Include the pointer in captures by default. `--cursor` turns it on for a single
# invocation; because the flag is a bare boolean it can only enable, so with
# `cursor = true` use the selector's cursor toggle to leave it out of one capture.
cursor = false
# Pre-capture delay in whole seconds. `0` (or omitted) means no delay. The CLI's
# `--delay SECONDS` flag overrides this value.
delay  = 0
# Mode button pre-selected when the interactive selector opens. One of
# `full` (all monitors), `screen` (focused monitor, default), `window`
# (click-to-pick), or `region` (drag-to-pick). The selector's mode buttons
# still let the user switch freely; this only seeds the initial state.
initial_mode = "screen"

[clipboard]
# Default selection used by bare `--to clipboard` sinks. One of `regular`
# (Ctrl-V paste, default), `primary` (middle-click paste), or `both`. Overridden
# per-invocation by `--clipboard-type`, and per-sink by `--to clipboard=KIND`.
default_kind = "regular"

[notify]
# Emit a desktop notification (with thumbnail) on a successful screenshot.
success    = true
# Emit a desktop notification on a fatal error (useful for keybind launches).
error      = true
# Notification expiry, in milliseconds.
timeout_ms = 6000

[ui.selector]
# Chrome colors for the region/full/screen/window selector and the standalone
# pre-capture countdown window. Hex RGBA strings: "#RRGGBB" (fully opaque) or
# "#RRGGBBAA". Every field is optional; omitted fields keep their defaults.
outline      = "#FFFFFFF2"  # active/selected zone (region rect, selected screen/window)
outline_hover = "#FFFFFFF2" # hovered (not yet committed) screen/window outline
label        = "#FFFFFFE6"  # region size legend + top-of-monitor hint text
dim_strong   = "#0000008C"  # heavy veil outside selection / non-selected screens
dim_full     = "#00000073"  # veil in region mode before a rectangle is drawn
dim_light    = "#00000040"  # full mode + hovered/selected screen
countdown_fg = "#FFFFFFF2"  # pre-capture countdown numeral fill
countdown_bg = "#0000008C"  # standalone countdown window background

[annotate.colors]
# Default color picked by each annotation tool when the editor / draw overlay
# opens. Hex RGBA strings: "#RRGGBB" (fully opaque) or "#RRGGBBAA". Every field
# is optional; omitted fields keep their defaults. The toolbar's color picker
# still lets the user change colors at runtime. `Blur`, `Crop`, and `Redact`
# are not listed because their appearance is hardcoded.
rect      = "#FF0000"    # rectangle outline
ellipse   = "#FF0000"    # ellipse outline
arrow     = "#FF0000"    # arrow stroke + head fill
line      = "#FF0000"    # straight-line stroke
freehand  = "#FF0000"    # freehand stroke
highlight = "#FFFF0059"  # translucent yellow fill
number    = "#E61A1A"    # number badge background (text stays white)
text      = "#FFF333"    # text foreground

Template tokens: {ts}, {date}, {time}, {output}, {selection}.

Architecture

The crate is a single binary with internal modules:

src/
├── cli/         # clap subcommands (screenshot, draw, daemon, doctor)
├── capture/     # wlr-screencopy backend (smithay-client-toolkit)
├── annotate/    # document model, tool trait, GSK-free helpers
├── output/      # file + clipboard sinks
├── ui/          # GTK4 windows + AnnotationCanvas (gated behind `ui` feature)
├── bridge.rs    # async <-> GTK glue (gated behind `ui` feature)
├── context.rs   # shared Ctx = Arc<Context>
├── hypr.rs      # Hyprland IPC
├── i18n.rs      # Fluent catalogs + the `fl!` macro
├── ipc.rs       # daemon protocol
├── daemon.rs    # Unix-socket IPC server
├── notify.rs    # desktop notifications (gated behind `notify` feature)
├── path.rs      # tilde expansion helpers
└── config.rs    # TOML configuration

Acknowledgements

Toolbar icons are sourced from the GNOME icon-development-kit and bundled under CC0 1.0. See data/icons/LICENSE.md for details.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
.config		.config
.github		.github
data		data
docs		docs
i18n		i18n
packaging/aur		packaging/aur
src		src
tests		tests
.gitattributes		.gitattributes
.gitignore		.gitignore
AGENTS.md		AGENTS.md
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
Cargo.lock		Cargo.lock
Cargo.toml		Cargo.toml
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
_typos.toml		_typos.toml
build.rs		build.rs
cliff.toml		cliff.toml
codecov.yml		codecov.yml
i18n.toml		i18n.toml
mise.lock		mise.lock
mise.toml		mise.toml
prek.toml		prek.toml

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