Quickshell Configs

Table of Contents

• Intro
• Installing Quickshell
  • NixOS
  • Arch Linux
  • Gentoo
• Using These Configs
  • Hyprland
  • Sway
• Customization
• Features

Intro

These are my Quickshell bar configs for Hyprland and Sway. Quickshell is a Qt/QML based shell framework that lets you build custom desktop widgets - bars, dashboards, whatever you want really.

Both configs have the same feature set and visual style, just adapted for each compositor’s IPC.

Installing Quickshell

You need to install Quickshell first before you can use these configs. Here’s how to do it on different distros.

NixOS

The easiest way. Just add it to your system packages:

{
  environment.systemPackages = with pkgs; [
    quickshell
  ];
}

Then rebuild:

sudo nixos-rebuild switch

If you want the latest git version, you can use the flake:

{
  inputs = {
    nixpkgs.url = "github:NixOS/nixpkgs/nixos-unstable";
    quickshell.url = "github:outfoxxed/quickshell";
  };

  outputs = { self, nixpkgs, quickshell, ... }: {
    nixosConfigurations.yourhost = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      system = "x86_64-linux";
      modules = [
        ({ pkgs, ... }: {
          environment.systemPackages = [
            quickshell.packages.${pkgs.system}.default
          ];
        })
      ];
    };
  };
}

Arch Linux

There’s an AUR package, so just use your favorite AUR helper:

yay -S quickshell-git

Or with paru:

paru -S quickshell-git

Gentoo

For Gentoo you’ll need to build from source. Make sure you have the dependencies first:

emerge --ask dev-qt/qtbase dev-qt/qtdeclarative dev-qt/qtwayland

Then clone and build:

git clone https://github.com/outfoxxed/quickshell
cd quickshell
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build
sudo cmake --install build

Using These Configs

Clone this repo somewhere:

git clone https://github.com/tonybanters/quickshell-btw

Hyprland

Copy the hyprland config to your quickshell config directory:

mkdir -p ~/.config/quickshell
cp -r quickshell-btw/hyprland/* ~/.config/quickshell/
cp -r quickshell-btw/icons ~/.config/quickshell/

Add quickshell to your hyprland config:

exec-once = quickshell

Or run it manually to test:

quickshell

If you want to run a specific config file:

qs -p ~/.config/quickshell/shell.qml

Sway

Copy the sway config to your quickshell config directory:

mkdir -p ~/.config/quickshell
cp -r quickshell-btw/sway/* ~/.config/quickshell/
cp -r quickshell-btw/icons ~/.config/quickshell/

Add quickshell to your sway config:

exec quickshell

You’ll also want to disable sway’s default bar:

bar {
    mode invisible
}

Or just remove the bar block entirely from your sway config.

Run it manually to test:

quickshell

Customization

Both configs use the same color scheme (Tokyo Night) and font settings. You can customize them by editing the properties at the top of shell.qml:

// Theme colors
property color colBg: "#1a1b26"
property color colFg: "#a9b1d6"
property color colMuted: "#444b6a"
property color colCyan: "#0db9d7"
property color colPurple: "#ad8ee6"
property color colRed: "#f7768e"
property color colYellow: "#e0af68"
property color colBlue: "#7aa2f7"

// Font
property string fontFamily: "JetBrainsMono Nerd Font"
property int fontSize: 14

The icon path is hardcoded to my home directory, so you’ll probably want to change that:

source: "file:///home/tony/.config/quickshell/icons/tonybtw.png"

Just swap out the path to wherever you put the icons, or use your own.

Features

Both configs include:

Widget	Description
Workspaces	Clickable workspace indicators (1-9)
Layout	Current layout mode (Tiled/Floating/etc)
Active Window	Currently focused window title
Kernel	Running kernel version
CPU	CPU usage percentage
Memory	RAM usage percentage
Disk	Root partition usage percentage
Volume	PipeWire volume level (uses wpctl)
Clock	Date and time

The sway config shows sway-specific layouts (Horizontal, Vertical, Tabbed, Stacking) while the hyprland config shows hyprland layouts (Tiled, Floating, Fullscreen).