RIVERCTL(1)

NAME

riverctl - command-line interface for controlling river

SYNOPSIS

riverctl [options] command [command specific arguments]

DESCRIPTION

riverctl is a command-line utility used to control and configure river over the Wayland protocol.

OPTIONS

-h
    Print a help message and exit.

-version
    Print the version number and exit.

COMMANDS

  ACTIONS

close
    Close the focused view.

csd-filter-add app-id|title pattern
    Add pattern to the CSD filter list. Views with this pattern are told to use client side decoration instead of the default server side decoration. Note that this affects new views as well as already existing ones. Title updates are not taken into account.

csd-filter-remove app-id|title pattern
    Remove pattern from the CSD filter list. Note that this affects new views as well as already existing ones.

exit
    Exit the compositor, terminating the Wayland session.

float-filter-add app-id|title pattern
    Add a pattern to the float filter list. Note that this affects only new views, not already existing ones. Title updates are also not taken into account.

float-filter-remove app-id|title pattern
    Remove an app-id or title from the float filter list. Note that this affects only new views, not already existing ones.

focus-output next|previous|up|right|down|left|name
    Focus the next or previous output, the closest output in any direction or an output by name.

focus-view next|previous
    Focus the next or previous view in the stack.

move up|down|left|right delta
    Move the focused view in the specified direction by delta logical pixels. The view will be set to floating.

resize horizontal|vertical delta
    Resize the focused view along the given axis by delta logical pixels. The view will be set to floating.

snap up|down|left|right
    Snap the focused view to the specified screen edge. The view will be set to floating.

send-to-output next|previous|up|right|down|left|name
    Send the focused view to the next or previous output, the closest output in any direction or to an output by name.

spawn shell_command
    Run shell_command using `/bin/sh -c shell_command`. Note that spawn only takes a single argument. To spawn a command taking multiple arguments, wrapping the command in quotes is recommended.

swap next|previous
    Swap the focused view with the next/previous visible non-floating view. If the first/last view in the stack is focused, wrap.

toggle-float
    Toggle the floating state of the focused view.

toggle-fullscreen
    Toggle the fullscreen state of the focused view.

zoom
    Bump the focused view to the top of the layout stack. If the top view in the stack is already focused, bump the second view.

default-layout namespace
    Set the layout namespace to be used by all outputs by default.

output-layout namespace
    Set the layout namespace of currently focused output, overriding the value set with default-layout if any.

send-layout-cmd namespace command
    Send command to the layout generator on the currently focused output with the given namespace, if any. What commands a layout generator understands depends on the layout generator. For rivertile, see the documentation in the rivertile(1) man page.

  TAG MANAGEMENT

Tags are similar to workspaces but more flexible. You can assign views multiple tags and focus multiple tags simultaneously. Bitfields are used to describe sets of tags when interfacing with river. As such, the following commands take a normal base 10 number as their argument but the semantics are best understood in binary. The binary number 000000001 represents a set containing only tag 1 while 100001101 represents a set containing tags 1, 3, 4, and 9.

When a view spawns it is assigned the currently focused tags of the output.

At least one tag must always be focused and each view must be assigned at least one tag. Operations that would violate either of these requirements are ignored by river.

set-focused-tags tags
    Show views with tags corresponding to the set bits of tags on the currently focused output.

set-view-tags tags
    Assign the currently focused view the tags corresponding to the set bits of tags.

toggle-focused-tags tags
    Toggle visibility of views with tags corresponding to the set bits of tags on the currently focused output.

toggle-view-tags tags
    Toggle the tags of the currently focused view corresponding to the set bits of tags.

spawn-tagmask tagmask
    Set a tagmask to filter the tags assigned to newly spawned views. This mask will be applied to the tags of new views with a bitwise and. If, for example, the tags 000011111 are focused and the spawn tagmask is 111110001, a new view will be assigned the tags 000010001. If no tags would remain after filtering, the tagmask is ignored.

focus-previous-tags
    Sets tags to their previous value on the currently focused output, allowing jumping back and forth between 2 tag setups.

send-to-previous-tags
    Assign the currently focused view the previous tags of the currently focused output.

  MAPPINGS

Mappings are modal in river. Each mapping is associated with a mode and is only active while in that mode. There are two special modes: "normal" and "locked". The normal mode is the initial mode on startup. The locked mode is automatically entered while the session is locked (e.g. due to a screenlocker). It cannot be entered or exited manually.

The following modifiers are available for use in mappings:

        • Shift
        • Lock
        • Control
        • Mod1 (Alt)
        • Mod2
        • Mod3
        • Mod4 (Super)
        • Mod5
        • None

Alt and Super are aliases for Mod1 and Mod4 respectively. None allows creating a mapping without modifiers

Keys are specified by their XKB keysym name. See /usr/include/xkbcommon/xkbcommon-keysyms.h for the complete list.

Mouse buttons are specified by Linux input event code names. The most commonly used values are:

        • BTN_LEFT - left mouse button
        • BTN_RIGHT - right mouse button
        • BTN_MIDDLE - middle mouse button

A complete list may be found in /usr/include/linux/input-event-codes.h

declare-mode name
    Create a new mode called name.

enter-mode name
    Switch to given mode if it exists.

map [-release|-repeat|-layout index] mode modifiers key command
    Run command when key is pressed while modifiers are held down and in the specified mode.

        • -release: if passed activate on key release instead of key press
        • -repeat: if passed activate repeatedly until key release; may not be used with -release
        • -layout: if passed, a specific layout is pinned to the mapping. When the mapping is checked against a pressed key, this layout is used to translate the key independent of the active layout
            • index: zero-based index of a layout set with the keyboard-layout command. If the index is out of range, the -layout option will have no effect
        • mode: name of the mode for which to create the mapping
        • modifiers: one or more of the modifiers listed above, separated by a plus sign (+).
        • key: an XKB keysym name as described above
        • command: any command that may be run with riverctl

map-pointer mode modifiers button action|command
    Move or resize views or run command when button and modifiers are held down while in the specified mode. The view under the cursor will be focused.

        • mode: name of the mode for which to create the mapping
        • modifiers: one or more of the modifiers listed above, separated by a plus sign (+).
        • button: the name of a Linux input event code as described above
        • action: one of the following values:
            • move-view
            • resize-view
        • command: any command that may be run with riverctl

map-switch mode lid|tablet state command
    Run command when river receives a certain switch event.

        • mode: name of the mode for which to create the mapping
        • lid|tablet: 'lid switch' and 'tablet mode switch' are supported
        • state:
            • possible states for lid:
                • close
                • open
            • possible states for tablet:
                • on
                • off
        • command: any command that may be run with riverctl

unmap [-release] mode modifiers key
    Remove the mapping defined by the arguments:

        • -release: if passed unmap the key release instead of the key press
        • mode: name of the mode for which to remove the mapping
        • modifiers: one or more of the modifiers listed above, separated by a plus sign (+).
        • key: an XKB keysym name as described above

unmap-pointer mode modifiers button
    Remove the pointer mapping defined by the arguments:

        • mode: name of the mode for which to remove the mapping
        • modifiers: one or more of the modifiers listed above, separated by a plus sign (+).
        • button: the name of a Linux input event code as described above

unmap-switch mode lid|tablet state
    Remove the switch mapping defined by the arguments:

        • mode: name of the mode for which to remove the mapping
        • lid|tablet: the switch for which to remove the mapping
        • state: a state as listed above

  CONFIGURATION

attach-mode top|bottom
    Configure where new views should attach to the view stack.

background-color 0xRRGGBB|0xRRGGBBAA
    Set the background color.

border-color-focused 0xRRGGBB|0xRRGGBBAA
    Set the border color of focused views.

border-color-unfocused 0xRRGGBB|0xRRGGBBAA
    Set the border color of unfocused views.

border-color-urgent 0xRRGGBB|0xRRGGBBAA
    Set the border color of urgent views.

border-width pixels
    Set the border width to pixels.

focus-follows-cursor disabled|normal|always
    There are three available modes:

        • disabled: Moving the cursor does not affect focus. This is the default.
        • normal: Moving the cursor over a view will focus that view. Moving the cursor within a view will not re-focus that view if focus has moved elsewhere.
        • always: Moving the cursor will always focus whatever view is under the cursor.

    If the view to be focused is on an output that does not have focus, focus is switched to that output.

hide-cursor timeout timeout
    Hide the cursor if it wasn't moved in the last timeout milliseconds until it is moved again. The default value is 0, which disables automatically hiding the cursor. Show the cursor again on any movement.

hide-cursor when-typing enabled|disabled
    Hide the cursor when pressing any non-modifier key. Show the cursor again on any movement.

set-cursor-warp disabled|on-output-change|on-focus-change
    Set the cursor warp mode. There are two available modes:

        • disabled: Cursor will not be warped. This is the default.
        • on-output-change: When a different output is focused, the cursor will be warped to its center.
        • on-focus-change: When a different view/output is focused, the cursor will be warped to its center.

set-repeat rate delay
    Set the keyboard repeat rate to rate key repeats per second and repeat delay to delay milliseconds.

xcursor-theme theme_name [size]
    Set the xcursor theme to theme_name and optionally set the size. The theme of the default seat determines the default for Xwayland and is made available through the XCURSOR_THEME and XCURSOR_SIZE environment variables.

  INPUT CONFIGURATION

list-inputs
    List all input devices.

list-input-configs
    List all input configurations.

keyboard-layout [-rules rules] [-model model] [-variant variant] [-options options] layout
    Set the XKB layout for all keyboards. Defaults from libxkbcommon are used for everything left unspecified. Note that layout may be a comma separated list of layouts (e.g. "us,de") which may be switched between using various key combinations configured through the options argument (e.g. -options "grp:ctrl_space_toggle"). See xkeyboard-config(7) for possible values and more information.

keyboard-group-create group_name
    Create a keyboard group. A keyboard group collects multiple keyboards in a single logical keyboard. This means that all state, like the active modifiers, is shared between the keyboards in a group.

keyboard-group-destroy group_name
    Destroy the keyboard group with the given name. All attached keyboards will be released, making them act as separate devices again.

keyboard-group-add group_name input_device_name
    Add a keyboard to a keyboard group, identified by the keyboard's input device name. Any currently connected and future keyboards with the given name will be added to the group.

keyboard-group-remove group_name input_device_name
    Remove a keyboard from a keyboard group, identified by the keyboard's input device name.

The input command can be used to create a configuration rule for an input device identified by its name. The name of an input device consists of its type, its numerical vendor id, its numerical product id and finally its self-advertised name, separated by -.

A list of all device properties that can be configured may be found below. However note that not every input device supports every property.

input name events enabled|disabled|disabled-on-external-mouse
    Configure whether the input devices events will be used by river.

input name accel-profile none|flat|adaptive
    Set the pointer acceleration profile of the input device.

input name pointer-accel factor
    Set the pointer acceleration factor of the input device. Needs a float between -1.0 and 1.0.

input name click-method none|button-areas|clickfinger
    Set the click method of the input device.

input name drag enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the tap-and-drag functionality of the input device.

input name drag-lock enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the drag lock functionality of the input device.

input name disable-while-typing enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the disable-while-typing functionality of the input device.

input name middle-emulation enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the middle click emulation functionality of the input device.

input name natural-scroll enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the natural scroll functionality of the input device. If active, the scroll direction is inverted.

input name left-handed enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the left handed mode of the input device.

input name tap enabled|disabled
    Enable or disable the tap functionality of the input device.

input name tap-button-map left-right-middle|left-middle-right
    Configure the button mapping for tapping.

        • left-right-middle: 1 finger tap equals left click, 2 finger tap equals right click, 3 finger tap equals middle click.
        • left-middle-right: 1 finger tap equals left click, 2 finger tap equals middle click, 3 finger tap equals right click.

input name scroll-method none|two-finger|edge|button
    Set the scroll method of the input device.

        • none: No scrolling
        • two-finger: Scroll by swiping with two fingers simultaneously
        • edge: Scroll by swiping along the edge
        • button: Scroll with pointer movement while holding down a button

input name scroll-button button
    Set the scroll button of an input device. button is the name of a Linux input event code.

EXAMPLES

Bind Super+Return in normal mode to spawn a foot(1) terminal:

    riverctl map normal Mod4 Return spawn 'foot --app-id=foobar'

Bind Super+Shift+J to swap the focused view with the next visible view:

    riverctl map normal Mod4+Shift J swap next

AUTHORS

Maintained by Isaac Freund <mail@isaacfreund.com> who is assisted by open source contributors. For more information about river's development, see <https://github.com/riverwm/river>.

SEE ALSO

river(1), rivertile(1)