exwlshelleventloop

Build Wayland desktop components with iced: panels, docks, launchers, lock screens and on-screen keyboards.

This project binds the wlr-layer-shell and ext-session-lock protocols, plus input-panel, to iced. These protocols give a surface a role that xdg-shell does not cover, and xdg-shell is all that winit and iced support. Hence the "ex" (extra) in exwlshell.

The design of exwlshell take reference from winit, also with something different, and the iced_exwlshell help you to write wlr-layer-shell and ext-session-lock programs easily This makes layer-shell and session-lock programs easier to write.

How it works

iced has no way to add custom system actions or system events. We work around this through Message.

• The application's Message must implement TryInto<ExWlShellCustomActionWithId, Error = Message>.
• The event loop calls try_into on every message. A message that converts is run as a shell action, such as opening a layer surface or locking the session. Any other message goes to your update as usual.
• The #[to_exwlshell_message] attribute macro adds the action variants to your Message enum and implements that conversion for you.

Custom events are also proposed upstream in iced-rs/iced#2658.

Crates

The main crates are listed first. iced_exwlshell is the one most users want.

iced_exwlshell

The full iced binding for the extra shells. Use it to build shell programs such as lock screens and docks.

• Open new layer-shell surfaces, including popups
• Session lock
• Virtual keyboard (zwp_virtual_keyboard_v1)

exwlshellev

One event loop for layer-shell, session-lock and input-panel. It does not depend on iced. It provides complete shell support for iced_exwlshell, which is built on it.

iced_wayland_subscriber

iced subscriptions for Wayland events, such as ext-workspace and outputs. Use it to listen to compositor state from an iced application.

waycrate_xkbkeycode

Handles xkbcommon events. Mostly adapted from winit.

Supporting crates

Crate	Purpose
iced_exwlshell_macros	Proc macros, re-exported by iced_exwlshell.
iced_exdevtools	Developer tools for iced_exwlshell applications.

Runnable examples are in iced_examples.

Limitations

Popups work in these shells, but neither winit nor iced has popup or tooltip support yet. Treat them as experimental. A design for proper support exists. It is not implemented, and needs a closer read of the iced internals first.

Documentation and help

The API documentation is still thin. If something is unclear:

• Ask in our Discord
• Open an issue
• Send a PR

PRs and issues are always welcome.

Migrating

From 0.20.0, iced_layershell and iced_sessionlock are deprecated. Their functions and macros now live in iced_exwlshell. The migration guides are in docs:

• 0.19.1 → 0.20.0
• 0.20.0 → 0.21.0