sway-themes

A themeable SwayFX rice. One command switches the whole desktop - window borders, waybar, foot (including already-open terminals), rofi, swaylock, dunst notifications and the animated wallpaper.

matrix	purple

Quick start

Debian 12 / Ubuntu 24.04 (amd64) - prebuilt packages, including a compiled SwayFX:

sudo install -d /etc/apt/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://betterinc.github.io/sway-themes/apt/public.key | \
  sudo gpg --dearmor -o /etc/apt/keyrings/sway-themes.gpg
echo "deb [arch=amd64 signed-by=/etc/apt/keyrings/sway-themes.gpg] https://betterinc.github.io/sway-themes/apt stable main" | \
  sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sway-themes.list

sudo apt update && sudo apt install sway-themes   # pulls swayfx & everything else
sway-themes-setup                                 # activate for your user

Any other distro - clone and build (Arch, Fedora and unknown package managers are handled):

git clone https://github.com/BetterInc/sway-themes ~/sway-themes
~/sway-themes/install.sh

Then log in to sway. Existing configs are backed up as *.bak; uninstall.sh (or /usr/share/sway-themes/uninstall.sh) restores them.

swayfx ships /usr/bin/sway and replaces the stock sway package; swaylock-effects replaces swaylock.

Switch themes

sway-theme            # list (* = active)
sway-theme purple     # switch everything, live

No re-login needed: borders, waybar, wallpaper, rofi, swaylock and dunst update immediately, and open foot terminals are recolored in place (the switcher pushes OSC 4/10/11/12 palette escapes to your PTYs, pywal-style). Only upgrading the swayfx binary itself ever needs a re-login.

Make your own theme

Setup already created a starter theme owned by you, no root needed:

~/.config/sway-themes/themes/example

It is a complete theme with its own teal palette - every file is plain text (sway colors, waybar palette, foot terminal colors, rofi, swaylock, dunst) plus a generated animated-gradient wallpaper. Edit anything in it and run sway-theme example to see your changes.

Making a new theme is literally one copy - duplicate the example (or any theme) under a new name in the same directory:

cp -r ~/.config/sway-themes/themes/example ~/.config/sway-themes/themes/mytheme
$EDITOR ~/.config/sway-themes/themes/mytheme/*   # change the colors
sway-theme mytheme

Everything under ~/.config/sway-themes/themes/ is yours: it never needs sudo, survives apt upgrades, and wins over shipped themes on name conflicts. No rebuild, no reload commands to remember - sway-theme <name> applies it live.

A theme is just a directory of color files - each optional: sway-colors.conf, waybar-colors.css, waybar-shape.css (optional bar shape overrides, e.g. border-radius: 0), waybar-config (optional whole bar layout: different modules, bottom bar, ...), foot-colors.ini, rofi.rasi, swaylock.config, dunstrc, hook.sh (optional script run on switch - GTK dark/light via gsettings, editor themes, keyboard RGB, anything), wallpaper.mp4, wallpaper-still.png. PRs with new themes are welcome.

Themes can also override the SwayFX look, not just colors: anything set in sway-colors.conf wins over the defaults (it is included after them). For example a sharp-cornered theme adds corner_radius 0 there; rounded themes simply do not set it. Note for existing installs: your sway config is your own editable copy, so this ordering only lands automatically on fresh setups - to adopt it, move the include ~/.config/sway-themes/current/... line below the SwayFX block in ~/.config/sway/config. Likewise for per-theme bar shapes on an existing install: copy the new config/waybar/style.css and config/waybar/structure.css over your copies in ~/.config/waybar/ (or delete yours and re-run setup).

Wallpapers

Animated wallpapers play on AC power (mpvpaper) and drop to a still image on battery (swaybg). The .mp4 files are not committed - download free from Pixabay into the theme directory:

theme	video (Pixabay Content License)	save as
matrix	falling digital rain (white source - colorize + loop recipes in WALLPAPER-SOURCE.txt)	~/.config/sway-themes/wallpapers/matrix.mp4
purple	dark plexus constellation	~/.config/sway-themes/wallpapers/purple.mp4

Save location - either works, the user directory wins if both exist:

• ~/.config/sway-themes/wallpapers/<theme>.mp4 - per user, no root needed
• <theme dir>/wallpaper.mp4 - system-wide; for apt installs that is /usr/share/sway-themes/themes/<theme>/wallpaper.mp4 (needs sudo, and dpkg leaves manually added files alone on upgrades)

Why not bundled? Licensing: the suggested videos are under the Pixabay Content License, which gives you the right to download and use them freely - but does not allow redistributing the files themselves, so this repo and the .deb packages cannot ship them. Downloading from the links above is the legitimate route. Any video you have the rights to works the same way - drop it in the user directory as <theme>.mp4 and re-run sway-theme <theme>.

No video? The theme just uses its committed still full-time. Recipes for adapting videos (recolor, colorize, hide a loop seam) are in each theme's WALLPAPER-SOURCE.txt.

How it works

Structure and colors are separated. config/ holds theme-agnostic configs for sway, waybar, foot and rofi; each themes/<name>/ is a self-contained color + wallpaper pack. One symlink - ~/.config/sway-themes/current - selects the active theme, and every app config reads its colors through it.

bin/sway-theme       theme switcher CLI
install.sh           deps (apt/pacman/dnf) + symlinks into ~/.config
uninstall.sh         removes symlinks, restores *.bak backups
build-from-source.sh SwayFX 0.3.2 (static wlroots 0.16.2), swaylock-effects, mpvpaper
packaging/mkdebs.sh  builds the .deb packages published to the APT repo
config/              sway, waybar, foot, rofi + wallpaper/battery scripts
themes/matrix        green rain
themes/purple        neon violet

Setup puts the app configs (sway keybindings, waybar layout, foot, rofi) in ~/.config as normal files you own and edit - no sudo, and re-running setup never overwrites a file you changed. Only the theme machinery is symlinked (the current pointer and per-app color includes), which is what makes sway-theme switches instant. Nothing outside ~/.config and ~/.local/bin is touched. CI installs the full rice on Debian 12, Ubuntu 24.04, Arch and Fedora, boots it headless and screenshots it (see the Actions artifacts).

Requirements (source install only)

The apt packages handle all of this. install.sh installs runtime deps via apt/pacman/dnf and runs build-from-source.sh for the rest:

built from source	why
SwayFX 0.3.2	required - rounded corners, blur, shadows are the look. Static wlroots 0.16.2 (Debian 12 ships 0.15).
swaylock-effects	themed lock screen (blurred screenshot + clock)
mpvpaper	optional - animated wallpaper

Font: JetBrainsMono Nerd Font -> ~/.local/share/fonts, then fc-cache -f.