🦅 Maverick

Columnar tiling window manager with niri-style scrollable layout, written in Rust

🦅 columnar • 🦀 rust • 🖥 xlibre • 🧩 tiling • 🌙 minimal

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✨ About

maverick is a lightweight, columnar tiling window manager written in Rust. It features a scrollable column layout inspired by niri, and is built directly on top of x11rb 0.13 to minimize dependencies and bloat.

Key Features

• 🦅 Horizontally scrollable column-based layout.
• ⚡ Lean footprint — no cairo/pango/Xft, no async runtime, single static binary.
• 🔲 Three layout modes: Column (stable), Monocle & Grid (experimental).
• 🖼 Real maximize (workarea-fill, keeps border) alongside fullscreen.
• 🖥 Multi-monitor support via RandR.
• 🧩 Floating + fullscreen window support.
• 🧱 External dock/bar support (Waybar, Polybar, …) via EWMH struts.
• 🔌 maverickctl control socket — list/state/dispatch/restart/reload/quit any running instance.
• 📐 Highly configurable (gaps, borders, bar, split bias).
• 🔧 Declarative window rules.
• 🚀 Autostart programs.
• 📋 EWMH compliant.

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🚀 Installation

Build from source

Maverick is a Cargo workspace with three binaries: maverick (the WM itself), maverickctl (control CLI), and maverick-dialog (the quit confirmation prompt). Build all of them together:

git clone https://github.com/azytar/Maverick.git
cd Maverick
cargo build --release --workspace

(--workspace is needed because the root Cargo.toml is itself the maverick package — without it, Cargo only builds maverick and skips the maverick-sys/maverick-dialog binaries.)

Building without the internal status bar (if you drive Waybar/Polybar instead — see Technical Details):

cargo build --release --workspace --no-default-features

Add to PATH

cp target/release/maverick target/release/maverickctl target/release/maverick-dialog ~/.local/bin/

maverick-dialog only needs to be on PATH if you want the Super+Shift+Q quit prompt to appear; without it, maverickctl falls back to zenity/kdialog/a TTY prompt.

Start with .xinitrc

exec maverick

Display manager — maverick.desktop

Create /usr/share/xsessions/maverick.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=maverick
Comment=Columnar tiling WM
Exec=maverick
Type=XSession

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🔲 Layouts

maverick ships three layout modes switchable at runtime.

Note: The Monocle and Grid modes are currently experimental and still under active development.

Mode	Shortcut	Description
Column	Super+T	Scrollable columns (default). Each window lives in its own column.
Monocle	Super+M	One window at a time, fullscreen within the workarea.
Grid	Super+G	All windows in a uniform grid.

Cycle through all modes with Super+Space.

Layout is set per workspace, not globally — switching it only rearranges the active workspace on the selected monitor.

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⌨️ Keybindings

Super = Windows key (Mod4)

Spawn

Shortcut	Action
Super+Return	Open terminal (alacritty)
Super+P	App launcher (rofi -show drun)
Super+Shift+P	Command runner (rofi -show run)

Window Operations

Shortcut	Action
Super+Shift+C	Kill focused window
Super+Shift+Space	Toggle floating
Super+Shift+F	Toggle fullscreen
Super+B	Toggle bar visibility

Focus Navigation

Shortcut	Action
Super+H	Focus column to the left
Super+L	Focus column to the right
Super+K	Focus window above (within column)
Super+J	Focus window below (within column)
Super+Tab	Focus next monitor

Window Movement

Shortcut	Action
Super+Shift+H	Move window left
Super+Shift+L	Move window right
Super+Shift+K	Swap window upward within column
Super+Shift+J	Swap window downward within column
Super+Shift+Tab	Move window to next monitor

Move semantics: if the focused column has one window, Shift+H/L swaps the entire column with its neighbour (fully reversible). If the column has multiple windows, the focused window is extracted into its own new adjacent column.

Column Operations

Shortcut	Action
Super+Shift+Return	Move window to a new column
Super+Ctrl+H	Shrink current column (−50 px)
Super+Ctrl+L	Grow current column (+50 px)
Super+Ctrl+J	Collapse column into the one to its left

Workspaces

Shortcut	Action
Super+1 … Super+9	Switch to workspace 1–9
Super+Shift+1 … Super+Shift+9	Move focused window to workspace 1–9

Workspace tags are also clickable in the bar.

WM Control

Shortcut	Action
Super+Shift+Q	Ask for confirmation, then quit maverick
Super+Shift+R	Hot restart maverick in-place
Super+F5	Hot restart maverick in-place
Super+Space	Cycle layout modes
Super+T	Set Column layout
Super+M	Set Monocle layout
Super+G	Set Grid layout

Super+Shift+Q spawns maverickctl quit --confirm (falls back to zenity/kdialog/TTY if maverick-dialog isn't installed) so a stray keypress can't kill the session. The whole WM is also controllable from outside over a Unix socket via maverickctl — see Technical Details.

Mouse (floating windows)

Action	Result
Super+Left-drag	Move floating window
Super+Right-drag	Resize floating window
Click on bar tag	Switch to that workspace

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🔧 Configuration

Note: maverick is configured entirely in src/config.rs. You must recompile the project after making any changes to this file to apply them.

cargo build --release
# Then restart maverick

Core Options

border_w:      2,      // border width in pixels
gaps:          6,      // gap between windows and screen edges (px)
bar_height:    22,     // status bar height in pixels
top_bar:       true,   // bar at top (false = bottom)
n_tags:        9,      // number of workspaces
default_col_w: 700,    // default column width when created (px)
split_bias:    0.6,    // focused-row size bonus in a split column (0.0–1.0)
focus_mouse:   false,  // focus window on mouse enter
warp_cursor:   false,  // warp cursor to focused window center

split_bias controls how much taller the focused window is compared to its siblings within a split column. 0.0 = equal heights, 1.0 = maximum bias.

Colors

Default palette: Catppuccin Mocha. All colors are 24-bit hex 0xRRGGBB:

col_normal:  0x45475a,  // unfocused window border   (Surface1)
col_focused: 0x89b4fa,  // focused window border      (Blue)
col_urgent:  0xf38ba8,  // urgent window border       (Red)
col_bar_bg:  0x1e1e2e,  // bar background             (Base)
col_bar_fg:  0xcdd6f4,  // bar foreground / text      (Text)
col_bar_sel: 0x89b4fa,  // selected workspace badge   (Blue)
col_bar_occ: 0xa6e3a1,  // occupied workspace dot     (Green)

Workspace Names

tag_names: ["1", "2", "3", "4", "5", "6", "7", "8", "9"].to_vec(),

Startup

compositor: vec!["picom", "--vsync"],            // compositor launched before the WM
compositor_delay_ms: 180,                        // ms to wait after compositor spawns
startup_sound: None,                             // optional WAV/OGG chime on startup
autostart: vec![
    vec!["feh", "--bg-fill", "/path/to/wallpaper.png"],
    vec!["alacritty"],
],

The compositor starts before the WM so every window gets compositing from its first frame. Autostart programs launch after both compositor and WM are ready. startup_sound accepts a path to a .wav or .ogg file; it tries pw-play → paplay → canberra-gtk-play → mpv → aplay in order.

The shipped default autostart also launches /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal and /usr/lib/xdg-desktop-portal-gtk — without them, GTK/portal-based file pickers (browser upload dialogs, etc.) never appear.

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📋 Window Rules

Rules let you assign windows to specific workspaces or force them to float automatically, matched by WM_CLASS or title substring.

rules: vec![
    Rule { class: Some("xdg-desktop-portal"), title: None,                    float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: Some("gpick"),              title: None,                    float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: Some("pinentry"),           title: None,                    float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: None, title: Some("file upload"),    float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: None, title: Some("open file"),      float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: None, title: Some("save file"),      float: true,  ws: None },
    Rule { class: None, title: Some("qt file dialog"), float: true,  ws: None },
],

Rule fields:

Field	Type	Description
class	Option<&str>	Match against WM_CLASS (case-insensitive substring)
title	Option<&str>	Match against window title (case-insensitive substring)
float	bool	Force floating mode
ws	Option<usize>	Send to workspace index (0-based)

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🏗 Technical Details

maverick minimizes abstraction layers by avoiding unnecessary dependencies:

• X11 / XLibre via x11rb 0.13 — Type-safe protocol bindings, no libx11. Only the WM and maverick-dialog link x11rb; the rest of the workspace is pure std.
• One dispatch seam — Engine::dispatch(Action) -> Vec<Effect> is the only path from a keybind or IPC command to state mutation. Effect is a semantic vocabulary (ArrangeMonitor, FocusWindow, SetFullscreen, …); the X11 backend's execute() is the only place that turns those into protocol calls. A future non-X11 backend would implement execute() against the same effects without the core changing.
• Fullscreen/maximize as presentation, not a state-machine block — core/present.rs rewrites only the focused window's rect (fullscreen → whole screen, maximize → workarea, both keeping precedence over plain layout) and re-arranges on every focus transition, instead of blocking input while a window is fullscreen.
• Instance control plane — maverick-sys gives every running instance a PID/display/tty identity and a Unix-socket protocol (ping/identify/state/dispatch/restart/reload/subscribe/quit). maverickctl talks to it: list, state, msg <action>, subscribe, quit[--confirm], quit-all, restart, reload, prune. Handles several instances on different displays/ttys.
• Raw X11 bar rendering — Status bar drawn with image_text8 and poly_fill_rectangle, no external font libraries. Behind the internal-bar Cargo feature (on by default); build with --no-default-features to rely on Waybar/Polybar instead.
• External dock/bar struts — Docks are detected via _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DOCK/_DESKTOP (never by process name) and reserve space by reading _NET_WM_STRUT_PARTIAL/legacy _NET_WM_STRUT, tracked per-monitor and released on destroy/unmap.
• HashMap client map — O(1) window lookups by XID.
• Bar batching — Queue is drained before each flush() to avoid O(N) redraws.
• O(N) column layout — Row heights precomputed in a single forward pass.
• RandR monitor detection — Correct workarea accounting for each monitor.
• EWMH support — Including _NET_WM_STATE, _NET_WM_DESKTOP, _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW, etc.
• exec-based restart — Replaces the process in-place, preventing X11 grab race conditions.
• override_redirect isolation — Bars and overlays remain invisible to the WM.
• Float centering guard — Skips centering for fullscreen apps (≥90% workarea coverage).

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📂 Project Structure

Maverick/                    # Cargo workspace
├── src/                     # `maverick` — the WM binary
│   ├── main.rs               entry point, signals, autostart, control-plane wiring
│   ├── config.rs              compiled-in config: Cfg, Rule, keybinds, colors
│   ├── types.rs                core data model: State, Monitor, Workspace, Column, Client
│   ├── log.rs                   lightweight stderr logger
│   ├── core/                    pure logic layer — no X11
│   │   ├── engine.rs              Engine::dispatch(Action) -> Vec<Effect>
│   │   ├── effect.rs               Effect enum (the core/backend seam)
│   │   ├── present.rs               fullscreen/maximize presentation layer
│   │   ├── layout.rs                 arrange_columns / arrange_monocle / arrange_grid
│   │   ├── ipc.rs                     state_json / parse_action for the control socket
│   │   └── tests.rs                   unit tests
│   └── backend/                 X11 backend — the only place that speaks the protocol
│       ├── atoms.rs               EWMH / ICCCM atom cache
│       ├── bar.rs                  Bar struct: font load + draw() + tag_at_x()
│       └── x11/                     the running WindowManager, split by concern
│           ├── mod.rs                 WindowManager, event loop, RandR
│           ├── manage.rs                window discovery, property reads, client setup
│           ├── events.rs                 X event dispatch table
│           ├── ewmh.rs                    EWMH property maintenance
│           ├── actions.rs                  do_action / execute (runs core's Effects)
│           ├── input.rs                     keymap, key grabs
│           ├── pointer.rs                    drag-to-move/resize, click focus
│           ├── render.rs                      geometry application, focus, restack
│           ├── struts.rs                       external dock reservation
│           └── bar.rs                           internal bar window lifecycle (feature-gated)
├── maverick-sys/             # libc FFI + instance identity/control-socket/hub/discover
│   └── src/
│       ├── identity.rs         per-instance PID/display/tty "ficha"
│       ├── control.rs           ControlServer — the Unix-socket protocol
│       ├── hub.rs                 ControlHub — bridge to the WM's event loop
│       ├── discover.rs             list/find/quit instances
│       └── bin/maverickctl.rs       the `maverickctl` CLI
├── maverick-dialog/           # standalone X11 yes/no quit-confirmation window
│   └── src/main.rs
├── CHANGELOG.md
├── Cargo.toml                 # workspace root + the `maverick` package
├── Cargo.lock
├── LICENSE
├── README.md
└── README.es.md

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📜 License

GPL-3.0 license

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