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Getting Started
- How to use
wal
- Applying the theme to new terminals
- Making the colorscheme persist on reboot
- Using a custom wallpaper setter
- Further Reading: --> Customization
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.
for 16 colors be sure to use the --cols16
flag
usage: wal [-h] [-a "alpha"] [-b background] [--fg foreground]
[--backend [backend]] [--theme [/path/to/file or theme_name]]
[--iterative] [--cols16 [method]] [--recursive]
[--saturate 0.0-1.0] [--preview] [--vte] [-c]
[-i "/path/to/img.jpg"] [-l] [-n] [-o "script_name"]
[-p "theme_name"] [-q] [-r] [-R] [-s] [-t] [-v] [-w] [-e]
wal - Generate colorschemes on the fly
options:
-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.
--fg foreground Custom foreground color to use.
--backend [backend] Which color backend to use. Use 'wal --backend' to
list backends.
--theme [/path/to/file or theme_name], -f [/path/to/file or theme_name]
Which colorscheme file to use. Use 'wal --theme' to
list builtin and user themes.
--iterative When pywal is given a directory as input and this flag
is used: Go through the images in order instead of
shuffled.
--cols16 [method] Use 16 color output "darken" or "lighten" default:
darken
--recursive When pywal is given a directory as input and this flag
is used: Search for images recursively in
subdirectories instead of the root only.
--saturate 0.0-1.0 Set the color saturation.
--preview Print the current color palette.
--vte Fix text-artifacts printed in VTE terminals.
-c Delete all cached colorschemes.
-i "/path/to/img.jpg"
Which image or directory to use.
-l Generate a light colorscheme.
-n Skip setting the wallpaper.
-o "script_name" External script to run after "wal".
-p "theme_name" permanently save theme to
$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/wal/colorschemes with the specified
name
-q Quiet mode, dont print anything.
-r 'wal -r' is deprecated: Use (cat
~/.cache/wal/sequences &) instead.
-R Restore previous colorscheme.
-s Skip changing colors in terminals.
-t Skip changing colors in tty.
-v Print "wal" version.
-w Use last used wallpaper for color generation.
-e Skip reloading gtk/xrdb/i3/sway/polybar
wal
only applies the new colors to the currently open terminals. Any new terminal windows you open won't use the new theme unless you add a single line to your shell's start up file.
Add this line to your shell startup file. (.bashrc
, .zshrc
, .mkshrc
etc.)
# Import colorscheme from 'wal' asynchronously
# & # Run the process in the background.
# ( ) # Hide shell job control messages.
# Not supported in the "fish" shell.
(cat ~/.cache/wal/sequences &)
# Alternative (blocks terminal for 0-3ms)
cat ~/.cache/wal/sequences
# To add support for TTYs this line can be optionally added.
source ~/.cache/wal/colors-tty.sh
On reboot your new colorscheme won't be set or in use. To fix this you have to add a line to your .xinitrc
or whatever file starts programs on your system. This wal
command will set your wallpaper to the wallpaper that was set last boot and also apply the colorscheme again.
Without this you'll be themeless until you run wal
again.
# Add this to your .xinitrc or whatever file starts programs on startup.
# -R restores the last colorscheme that was in use.
wal -R
wal
will detect which wallpaper setter you have installed and use it with the fill
mode to set the wallpaper. If you'd like to override this and use either your own setter, a different mode or some different commandline flags you can do the following:
# -n tells `wal` to skip setting the wallpaper.
wal -i img.jpg -n
# Using feh to tile the wallpaper now.
# We grab the wallpaper location from wal's cache so
# that this works even when a directory is passed.
feh --bg-tile "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"
# You can create a function for this in your shellrc (.bashrc, .zshrc).
wal-tile() {
wal -n -i "$@"
feh --bg-tile "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"
}
# Usage:
wal-tile "~/Pictures/wall.jpg"
wal-tile "~/Pictures/tiles"