Talk:Sway

Flatpak section has no relevance to sway

should be moved to another article --Psykose (talk) 11:08, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Video and input groups

Please don't revert edits and add these groups again. Being a member of these groups is not required and is actively discouraged by upstream. WhyNotHugo (talk) 14:27, 1 November 2023 (UTC)

So seatd also allows not using these groups? Sorry, I didn't know that. Sertonix (talk) 15:24, 4 November 2023 (UTC)

I can confirm that sway starts fine using the directions on the current revision of the wiki using seatd. No users were added to video or input group.

I didn't have luck with elogind, but didn't mess with it much. –zcrayfish (talk•contribs•send email) 11:51, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I found the issue that backlight control doesn't work for me without the video group. It may be resolvable with a udev rule. Setuid is also possible but suid always exposes security problems. It seems like that could/should be handled by seatd but I haven't found anything like that. Sertonix (talk) 20:25, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to remove the "Start as a service" section.

I for one think this section should be replaced by a section instructing users to start sway with their .profile.
Looks to me that the openrc service as written on the page now starts it as root. Would be a lot better from a security standpoint if it was started as a regular user. Thoughts?
–zcrayfish (talk•contribs•send email) 11:57, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

I fixed the issue with sway running as root. At least I think, I haven't tested if that can work. I don't have a opinion if the section should be removed. A link to the OpenRC user services wik might be appropriate. Sertonix (talk) 15:03, 6 November 2023 (UTC)

Custom keyboard layout section should be replaced.

This section should use user environmental variables, like below:

 XKB_DEFAULT_MODEL=latitude
 XKB_DEFAULT_LAYOUT=us
 XKB_DEFAULT_VARIANT=intl
 #XKB_DEFAULT_OPTIONS=grp:alt_shift_toggle

OR the appropriate sway config files.

Editing evdev config is far beyond the article scope... –zcrayfish (talk•contribs•send email) 20:13, 20 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed. I fixed that section to use Sway config instead. Quq (talk) 23:59, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

What happend?!

What happend here: https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/w/index.php?title=Sway&diff=prev&oldid=26436

The summary and what changes I see differ drastically:

Summary: 'add details about seatd, elogind and optional greeter'.

Changes: removal of the initial description, removal of the 'see also' section, removal of the template usage, removal of information that gives users the possibility to decide what they want

After a bit of searching it seems that the Sway article content has been replaced with the content of 'Sway_on_Laptop' without merging the improvements done to the Sway article. https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/w/index.php?title=Sway_on_Laptop&diff=next&oldid=26445

Can we please recover the lost changes?

Sertonix (talk) 11:50, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Environmental Variables

Amended dbus-update-activation-environment variables as per upstream wiki. This line might be universally applicable if using dbus (possibly not for dbus-broker), so required variables could be mentioned, say, in a more general Environment Variables section, before the Pipewire and Screensharing section.John3-16 (talk) 18:21, 7 October 2025 (UTC)

Sway#Quickstart_-_config_File

Dear John3-16, Thanks for the detailed guide to configure sway for users coming from traditional DE's like Xfce. You may want to consider moving this content to a new page with a suitable title and link it back here. This is also a very good candidate to be added as a standalone entry in Tutorials_and_Howtos with so much useful information. Also consider adding links to sample dotfiles.(if available). Separately, I have also been thinking of ways to capture sample dotfiles here in wiki using templates, but not been successful yet. -Prabuanand (talk) 03:18, 10 October 2025 (UTC)

Dear Prabuanand, thank you for appreciating so many aspects of the "Quickstart - config File" section.

1. Please indicate which of the following page titles, to move the passage to, would you not ask me to consider changing:-
• "Sway - Configuration Possibilities"
• "Sway - Configuration Models"
• "Tutorial - Sway Compositor - Configurations"
• "Tutorial - Sway Compositor - config File"

Others could then add their own sections in the future and/or enhance that one; I would add a "TODO" box stating that more configuration contributions are welcome/encouraged.

2. Please also indicate which section titles would you not ask me to consider changing for the passage currently called "Quickstart - config File" to place within either of those three considered pages:-
• "Sway - A Configuration for Both Newcomers and Technical Users";
• "Sway - Full-Sized Views, Navigating Using Alt-Tab" (in case the use of '+' signs in a heading may throw off any future links, but alternatively, I could experiment using the "Alt+Tab" expression anyway in that subheading, seeing in a preview whether the internal link works); or
• "Sway with Full-Sized Views, Navigating with Alt-Tab".

These section titles, or similar, could also be ok by me if you would prefer them as page titles instead. I would plan to effect the move then.

3. However, the use of a moniker in a wiki page or section, with a title such as "John3-16's Sway Configuration" may make it a candidate to be culled by an undetermined future wiki patroller who may disapprove of pages or sections titled after one's username/moniker, I suspect, despite validity in its content and numerous hours preparing it; additionally, the appearance of a username may largely be immaterial in a title; I prefer to decline such types of page or section titles.

4. Finally, seeing how immediate help with the configuration and an overview of that file's configuration and its keybindings would be so immediately useful to Sway newcomers so as to not overwhelm them, and to help to retain a larger base of less technical newcomers to this operating system, I strongly suggest that a link to that new page be created not out of immediate sight, deep down in the See also section, but within the Sway config File introductory passage itself (three out of four wiki links on Sway in the See also section currently examine config content), such as with the following passage additions – and one word change, from and to so – currently highlighted in italics for quick spotting in this talk:

Read through it to learn the default keybindings. There are configurations and tips for this config file [LINKTONEWPAGE|elsewhere in this wiki] as well as in the See also section. Furthermore, Sway's configuration is mostly backward compatible with that of i3's, so if you are looking for a solution for a specific issue, you could alternatively try checking whether it hasn't been provided for the i3 window manager.

The passage considered to be moved advances different configurations (see its different 'optional' passages), so the use of plural is not unjustified.

If none of my page titles or none of my section titles are acceptable in your view, please enact the move yourself, respecting my statement about the employment of a moniker/username. Wiki content could alternatively remain as is or moved if and when further configurations for the config file were to surface in the future in this wiki e.g. in a dedicated configuration page. Regarding the useful idea of linking to dotfiles, you and others, naturally, are very welcome to add them in due course; I am not inclined to publish mine (indeed, I haven't placed them online) nor to seek some. Thank you again for your extensive support of the Alpine Linux wiki. John3-16 (talk) 04:28, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Dear John3-16, Thanks for considering the suggestion to place the detailed guide in it's own standalone page.

1. The page title that came to my mind on that day itself was "Sway customization guide" to differentiate it from the regular configuration. This way the intent of the page is captured and the choice is left to the reader. In few other pages like Installation and Raspberry Pi, we have used the same root word i.e custom/customize.

2. Your suggestions for different sections are very apt as they capture the objective clearly. The section names should help the reader to decide whether to read or skip the contents.

3. I fullly agree with your views on the page title. Wiki history records every contribution and hence there's no need for pages with username in them.

4. Your suggestion to add the reference here is quite appropriate. "Refer to the [[Sway customization guide|Sway customization guide]] as well as the [[#See also|See also]] section for Tips on customizing this config file." will be quite apt. Please feel to suitably rephrase the above. - Prabuanand (talk) 17:26, 13 October 2025 (UTC)

Dear John3-16, I have moved the contents "as is" to the Sway customization guide page for now and added link it as discussed above. I have not added section headings for now, so as not to disturb the page too much, except for adding the introduction paragraph, see also and category. - Prabuanand (talk) 04:19, 15 October 2025 (UTC)