Dotfiles/desktopenvs/hyprlua/astal-menu/README.md

astal-menu

A touch-friendly GTK4 popup control centre for the hyprlua desktop, replacing nwg-dock and nwg-drawer. Triggered from the EWW top bar (or Super+D).

Layout: a 2×2 quad grid of feature modules over a full-width application drawer. Any quad can expand to overlay the other three; the drawer can expand to the bottom of the screen. A single margined root box letterboxes the menu identically in every state.

Stack

• Frontend: Python + PyGObject + GTK4, as a wlr-layer-shell surface (gtk4-layer-shell). Chosen over Lua because lgi/Astal-Lua only support GTK3.
• Location map: a static OSM image stitched from tiles (backend/staticmap.py, Pillow). libshumate does not paint tiles in this environment (the official shumate-demo shows the same blank map), though tile downloads work — hence the static fallback.
• Services: Astal GObject libraries via introspection — AstalNetwork, AstalBluetooth, AstalApps — plus our own IP-geolocation singleton.
• Backends: Python/Bash scripts in backend/ (JSON on stdout), run async via Gio.Subprocess so nothing blocks the UI.
• Theme: style/_colors.css (@define-color, generated from ~/Dotfiles/colors.conf by apply-theme.sh) + style/style.css.

Running

main.py is single-instance. The autostart launches a hidden resident daemon; verbs are forwarded over D-Bus:

scripts/astal-menu-start.sh          # resident daemon (hidden); sets LD_PRELOAD
scripts/menu-toggle.sh               # --toggle
scripts/menu-toggle.sh appdrawer     # open with the app drawer expanded

astal-menu-start.sh must LD_PRELOAD libgtk4-layer-shell (it loads after libwayland under PyGObject otherwise).

Adding a module

1. Create modules/<name>.py exposing a top-level SPEC = ModuleSpec(...) whose build(ctx) returns a ModuleInstance(compact=…, expanded=…, …).
   • compact shows in the 2×2 cell; a distinct expanded widget enables the expand button (they must be separate instances — GTK widgets have one parent).
   • Declare per-feature toggles via features=[Feature("id", "Label", default)]; read them with ctx.feature("id"). A disabled quad never calls build().
   • Shared state (network, bluetooth, location) is on ctx.services.
2. Append its SPEC to ALL_SPECS in registry.py. Nothing else changes.

Files

main.py          app + single-instance IPC        window.py    layer-shell + letterbox
registry.py      module list (extension seam)      settings.py  JSON toggles/order
module_base.py   ModuleSpec / ModuleInstance / ModuleContext
appservices.py   shared Astal services + location
ui/              quadcard, quadgrid, appdrawer
modules/         location, weather, bluetooth, network
services/        location (geolocation singleton)
lib/             ansi (SGR→TextTag), proc (async subprocess)
backend/         geolocate.py, weather.sh, network.sh
style/           _colors.css, style.css