A fast, customizable application launcher built with GTK4 and Rust, designed for Linux desktop environments. Walker provides a clean, modern interface for launching applications, running commands, performing calculations, and more.

GitBook Documentation/Wiki

The following Elephant providers are implemented by default:

• Desktop Applications: Launch installed GUI applications
• Calculator: Perform mathematical calculations with = prefix
• File Browser: Navigate and open files with / prefix
• Command Runner: Execute shell commands
• Websearch: Search the web with custom-defined engines
• Clipboard History: Access clipboard history with : prefix
• Symbol Picker: Insert special symbols with . prefix
• Provider List: Switch between providers with ; prefix
• Menu Integration: Create custom menus with elephant and let walker display them
• Dmenu: Your good old dmenu ... with seamless menus!
• Arch Linux Packages: Search through available packages (official and aur), install or delete a target! List all exlusively installed packages.
• Todo List: create simple todo items with basic time tracking, scheduling and notifications
• Bluetooth: basic bluetooth management

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/abenz1267/walker.git
cd walker

# Build with Cargo
cargo build --release

# Run Walker
./target/release/walker

• GTK4 (version 4.6+)
• gtk4-layer-shell
• Protocol Buffers compiler
• cairo
• poppler-glib
• make sure elephant is running before starting Walker

elephant.url = "github:abenz1267/elephant";

walker = {
  url = "github:abenz1267/walker";
  inputs.elephant.follows = "elephant";
};

imports = [inputs.walker.homeManagerModules.default];

programs.walker.enable = true;

imports = [inputs.walker.nixosModules.default];

programs.walker.enable = true;

home.packages = [inputs.walker.packages.<system>.default];

environment.systemPackages = [inputs.walker.packages.<system>.default];

programs.walker = {
  enable = true;
  runAsService = true;

  # All options from the config.toml can be used here https://github.com/abenz1267/walker/blob/master/resources/config.toml
  config = {
    theme = "your theme name";
    placeholders."default" = { input = "Search"; list = "Example"; };
    providers.prefixes = [
      {provider = "websearch"; prefix = "+";}
      {provider = "providerlist"; prefix = "_";}
    ];
    keybinds.quick_activate = ["F1" "F2" "F3"];
  };

  themes = {
    # set `programs.walker.config.theme="your theme name"` to choose the default theme
    "your theme name" = {
      # Check out the default css theme as an example https://github.com/abenz1267/walker/blob/master/resources/themes/default/style.css
      style = " /* css */ ";

      # Check out the default layouts for examples https://github.com/abenz1267/walker/tree/master/resources/themes/default
      layouts = {
        "layout" = " <!-- xml --> ";
        "item_calc" = " <!-- xml --> "
        # other provider layouts
      };
    };
    "other theme name" = {
        # ...
    };
    # more themes
  };
}

nix.settings = {
  extra-substituters = ["https://walker.cachix.org" "https://walker-git.cachix.org"];
  extra-trusted-public-keys = ["walker.cachix.org-1:fG8q+uAaMqhsMxWjwvk0IMb4mFPFLqHjuvfwQxE4oJM=" "walker-git.cachix.org-1:vmC0ocfPWh0S/vRAQGtChuiZBTAe4wiKDeyyXM0/7pM="];
};

Make sure elephant is running and you have providers installed. elephant-providerlist and f.e. elephant-desktopapplications.

Launch Walker with walker.

In order to improve startup performance, run a Walker service with:

walker --gapplication-service

If the service is running, you can either open Walker with:

walker

or for an even faster launch make a socket call, f.e. with openbsd-netcat:

nc -U /run/user/1000/walker/walker.sock

The downside of the socket call is that it does not handle any commandline options, so it's just a faster alternative to a simple walker call.

The following modifier keys are valid: ctrl, alt, shift, super.

To get a full list of possible key values, look here: GDK key-values.

F.e. pub const GDK_KEY_semicolon: c_int = 59; means that ctrl semicolon would be a valid keybind.

Configuration should be done in ~/.config/walker.

Check out the default config.

You can customize Walker's appearance by creating a custom theme. Checkout resources/themes/default for the default theme. Themes inherit the default theme by default, so if you just want to change the CSS, you can just create themes/yours/style.css.

You can customize rendering of list items for each provider individually, f.e. "item_files.xml" will define the layout for items sourced from the files provider.

Please refer to the GTK4 docs to checkout how to write *.xml files for GTK4.

THE DEFAULT THEME CANNOT BE CHANGED.

Please do not make PRs to fix single typos. Fix all or nothing.

This project is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.