Skip to content
This repository was archived by the owner on Apr 26, 2024. It is now read-only.

Getting Started

Jump to bottom
Dylan Araps edited this page Aug 12, 2017 · 23 revisions

Table of Contents

How to use wal

Run wal and point it to either a directory (wal -i "path/to/dir") or an image (wal -i "/path/to/img.jpg") and that's all. wal will change your wallpaper for you and also set your terminal colors.

usage: wal [-h] [-a "alpha"] [-b background] [-c] [-i "/path/to/img.jpg"]
           [-f "/path/to/colorscheme/file"] [-n] [-o "script_name"] [-q] [-r]
           [-R] [-t] [-v] [-e]

wal - Generate colorschemes on the fly

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -a "alpha"            Set terminal background transparency. *Only works in
                        URxvt*
  -b background         Custom background color to use.
  -c                    Delete all cached colorschemes.
  -i "/path/to/img.jpg"
                        Which image or directory to use.
  -f "/path/to/colorscheme/file"
                        Which colorscheme file to use.
  -n                    Skip setting the wallpaper.
  -o "script_name"      External script to run after "wal".
  -q                    Quiet mode, don"t print anything and don't display
                        notifications.
  -r                    Reload current colorscheme.
  -R                    Restore previous theme.
  -t                    Fix artifacts in VTE Terminals. (Termite,
                        xfce4-terminal)
  -v                    Print "wal" version.
  -e                    Skip Reloading Environment gtk/xrdb/i3/polybar

Applying the theme to new terminals

wal only applies the new colors to the currently open terminals. Any new terminal windows you open won't use the new theme unless you add a single line to your shell's start up file.

Add this line to your shell startup file. (.bashrc, .zshrc, .mkshrc etc.)

# Import colorscheme from 'wal'
# &   # Run the process in the background.
# ( ) # Hide shell job control messages.
(wal -r &)

# If the command above doesn't work,
# try this alternative.
setsid wal -r

Making the colorscheme persist on reboot

On reboot your new colorscheme won't be set or in use. To fix this you have to add a line to your .xinitrc or whatever file starts programs on your system. This wal command will set your wallpaper to the wallpaper that was set last boot and also apply the colorscheme again.

Without this you'll be themeless until you run wal again.

# Add this to your .xinitrc or whatever file starts programs on startup.
wal -i "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"

Numbers, garbage and junk is appearing in my terminal

This issue occurs in all VTE based terminals (xfce4-terminal, gnome-terminal, termite etc) and is caused by these terminals not supporting one of the color changing sequences. You can easily fix the issue by adding -t to all of your wal commands.

The -t command disables the problem sequence and therefore stops the junk from being printed.

Note: This issue is caused by this 10 year old VTE bug: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=403130

Using a custom wallpaper setter

wal will detect which wallpaper setter you have installed and use it with the fill mode to set the wallpaper. If you'd like to override this and use either your own setter, a different mode or some different commandline flags you can do the following:

# -n tells `wal` to skip setting the wallpaper.
wal -i img.jpg -n

# Using feh to tile the wallpaper now.
# We grab the wallpaper location from wal's cache so 
# that this works even when a directory is passed.
feh --bg-tile "$(< "~/.cache/wal/wal")"  


# You can create a function for this in your shellrc (.bashrc, .zshrc).
wal-tile() {
    wal -n -i "$@"
    feh --bg-tile "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"
}

# Usage:
wal-tile "~/Pictures/wall.jpg"
wal-tile "~/Pictures/tiles"

Clone this wiki locally