way-displays(1)
| WAY-DISPLAYS(1) | User Manuals | WAY-DISPLAYS(1) |
NAME
way-displays - Auto Manage Your Wayland Displays
SYNOPSIS
way-displays [OPTIONS...] [COMMAND]
DESCRIPTION
- 1.
- Set resolution/refresh: preferred, highest or custom
- 2.
- Enable VRR / adaptive sync
- 3.
- Arrange in a row or a column
- 4.
- Auto scale based on DPI: 96 is a scale of 1
- 5.
- Update when displays plugged/unplugged
- 6.
- Update when laptop lid closed/opened
Works out of the box: no configuration required.
Wayland successor to xlayoutdisplay, inspired by kanshi.
See wiki for Configuration, Recipes, Troubleshooting and more.
Server
Background process that performs the management. Configuration is read from a file discovered in order:
-
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/way-displays/cfg.yaml $HOME/.config/way-displays/cfg.yaml /usr/local/etc/way-displays/cfg.yaml /etc/way-displays/cfg.yaml
The file may be specified via the --config option.
cfg.yaml will be monitored for changes, which will be immediately applied.
See the default /etc/way-displays/cfg.yaml and https://github.com/alex-courtis/way-displays/wiki/Configuration for details on individual configurable settings.
Server is run when no commands are specified.
Server responds to IPC requests to fetch and mutate state: https://github.com/alex-courtis/way-displays/wiki/IPC
Client
Manages the server. The active configuration and display state may be inspected, and the configuration modified.
The active configuration can be written to disk, however any comments and formatting will be lost.
REQUIREMENTS
A wlroots based compositor that supports the WLR Output Management protocol.
way-displays is blessed for the sway and river. It may work on others.
Hpyrland provides all way-displays functionality and you may experience issues.
way-displays must be run as a daemon, a background server process. It will respond to your configuration changes as well as state changes such as plugging in a monitor or closing the lid.
User should be a member of the input group for querying laptop lid state.
OPTIONS
- -L | --l[og-threshold] <debug|info|warning|error|fatal>
- Overrides cfg.yaml. info is default.
- -c | --c[onfig] <path>
- Configuration file, falls back to defaults if not found.
- -y | --y[aml]
- Print client output as raw YAML
COMMANDS
- -h | --h[elp]
- Print usage and exit.
- -v | --v[ersion]
- Display version information and exit.
- -l | --li[st]
- Show the state of the connected displays: description, enabled, scale, VRR and mode.
- -g | --g[et]
- Show the active configuration, commands and current display state.
- -s | --s[et]
- Add a new setting or modify an existing.
- ARRANGE_ALIGN <row|column> <top|middle|bottom|left|right>
- Set vertical arrangement and the alignment.
- ORDER <name|!regex> ...
- Set the order of arrangement. Replaces previous order.
- SCALING <on|off>
- Enable scaling, overrides AUTO_SCALE and SCALE
- AUTO_SCALE <on|off>
- Enable auto scaling.
- SCALE <name> <scale>
- Set the scale for a specific display.
- MODE <name> MAX
- Highest available resolution / refresh.
- MODE <name> <width> <height> [<Hz>]
- Specified resolution at its highest refresh. Optional refresh will choose a mode +-0.5Hz.
- TRANSFORM <name> <90|180|270|flipped|flipped-90|flipped-180|flipped-270>
- Transform a specific display.
- VRR_OFF <name>
- Disable VRR for a display.
- DISABLED <name>
- Disable a display.
- CALLBACK_CMD <shell command>
- Sets a /bin/sh command to be executed following most events. Obeys LOG_THRESHOLD
- Default: notify-send "way-displays ${CALLBACK_LEVEL}" "${CALLBACK_MSG}"
- ${CALLBACK_MSG} contains a human readable message
- ${CALLBACK_LEVEL} LOG_THRESHOLD
- -d, --d[elete]
- Remove an existing setting.
- SCALE <name>
- Use auto scaling for the display, if enabled.
- MODE <name>
- Use preferred or highest availble if no preferred.
- TRANSFORM <name>
- Remove transformation for a display.
- VRR_OFF <name>
- Enable VRR for a display.
- DISABLED <name>
- Enable a display.
- CALLBACK_CMD <shell command>
- Remove command on display configuration success.
- -t, --t[oggle]
- Toggle a setting.
- SCALING
- Toggle scaling.
- AUTO_SCALE
- Toggle auto scaling.
- VRR_OFF <name>
- Toggle VRR for a display.
- DISABLED <name>
- Toggle a display.
- -w | --w[rite]
- Write active configuration to cfg.yaml; removes any whitespace or comments.
NAMING
Displays are matched by name or description with precedence: exact, regex, fuzzy
You can identify them via logs e.g.
-
DP-3 Arrived:
name: 'DP-3'
desc: 'Unknown Monitor Maker ABC123 (DP-3 via HDMI)'
It is recommended to use the description rather than the nondeterministic name.
Any item prefixed with a ! will be interpreted as extended POSIX regex e.g. `!^DP-1'. Regex strings must be single quoted.
Using a regex is preferred, however fuzzy case insensitive string matches of at least 3 characters may be used.
`DP-1' will match eDP-1 and DP-1. Consider using regex `!^DP-1$' to exactly match.
EXAMPLES
- exec way-displays > /tmp/way-displays.${XDG_VTNR}.${USER}.log 2>&1
- Add to your sway config to start way-displays when sway starts.
- way-displays -g
- Show current configuration and display state.
- way-displays -l
- List the connected displays.
- way-displays -s ARRANGE_ALIGN row bottom
- Arrange left to right, aligned at the bottom.
- way-displays -s ORDER "!^DP-[0-9]+$" HDMI-1 "monitor maker ABC model XYZ" eDP-1
- Set the order for arrangement.
- way-displays -s SCALE "eDP-1" 3
- Set the scale.
- way-displays -s MODE HDMI-A-1 3840 2160 24
- Use 3840x2160@24Hz
- way-displays -w
- Persist your changes to your cfg.yaml
SEE ALSO
https://github.com/alex-courtis/way-displays
AUTHORS
Alexander Courtis.
| 2025/10/04 | way-displays |