easyland 0.7.0

A python swiss-knife to manage wayand compositors like Hyprland

Pyland

Pyland is a customizable event-driven Python listener for Hyprland. It currently supports three listeners:

• Hyprland IPC event list
• Systemd Logind signals
• A custom Idle function that allows you to know since how many seconds there was no activity

The tool allows to listen for these events and to execute commands (Shell or hyprctl commands) in response.

Why this tool?

Good question.

Initially, I was a bit stressed by the number of tools needed with Hyprland (Kanshi & hypridle notably), and also by the number of bugs despite the awesome efforts of the developers.

I wanted to have a deeper control on my system, and to be able to script it as I wanted.

To give an example, my laptop screen brightness was always at 100% when I undock it, and Kanshi does not allow to add shell commands. This is only one small example of the numerous limitations I met during my setup of Hyprland.

By scripting my Desktop in Python, I feel I have more control to implement what I want.

Installation

This program needs the following tools:

• Python3 with the following modules: argparse, importlib, logging, subprocess, threading
• The socat binary (Arch)
• The gdbus binary (Arch)

How to use

There are two configurations: a dummy one just to listen and print all events, and my configuration ;-) These configurations are located in the configs folder. Each file has a class called Main where you define what you want to listen and what you want to do.

Read both files to understand how it works.

If you type ./pyland.py -l, Pyland will be launched with the dummy configuration. Otherwise, it will be launched with the configuration mentioned at the top of the pyland.py file.

Simplest configuration

from libs.Log import logger
from libs.Config import Config

class Main(Config):
    def on_hyprland_event(self, event, argument):
        logger.info("Hyprland: Receveived '"+event +"' with argument "+argument.strip())        
    
    def on_idle(self, time_elapsed):
        logger.info('Current idle time (sec): '+ str(time_elapsed))

    def on_systemd_event(self, sender, signal, payload):
        logger.info("Systemd: Receveived from '"+sender+"': "+ signal +' with payload: '+payload)

Real configuration

from libs.Log import logger
from libs.Config import Config

class Main(Config):

    def on_hyprland_event(self, event, argument):
        if event in [ "monitoradded", "monitorremoved" ]:
            logger.info('Handling hyprland event: ' + event)
            self.set_monitors()
   
    
    def set_idle_config(self):
        self.add_timeout(10, ['brightnessctl -s set 0'], ['brightnessctl -r'])
        self.add_timeout(20, ['hyprlock'])
        self.add_timeout(720, ['hyprctl dispatch dpms off'], ['hyprctl dispatch dpms on'])


    def on_idle(self, time_elapsed):
        self.do_idle_with_config(time_elapsed)

    def on_PrepareForSleep(self, payload):
        if 'true' in payload:
            logger.info("Locking the screen before suspend")
            self.command.shell_command("hyprlock")

    def set_monitors(self):
        logger.info('Setting monitors')
        if self.command.get_monitor(description="HP 22es") is not None:
            self.command.hyprctl_command('keyword monitor "eDP-1,disable"')
        else:
            self.command.hyprctl_command('keyword monitor "eDP-1,preferred,auto,2"')
            self.command.shell_command("brightnessctl -s set 0")

Available listeners

Sender	Handler method to add to your class	Arguments
Hyprland	on_hyprland_event	event, arguement
Systemd Logind	on_systemd_event	sender, signal, payload
Systemd Logind	on_[signal]	payload
Pyland	on_idle	Number of seconds since the last Hyprland event

Hyprland events

They are well documented here.

Systemd Logind events

These events are called "signals" in the Systemd terminology.

They are not well documented but you can try to read that (good luck).

The best way to implement what you want is to do first a pyland.py -l so you will get a dump of all signals received.

Some examples that can be useful:

Member	Description
PrepareForShutdown	Sent before a shutdown
PrepareForSleep	Sent before suspend
Lock	Sent when a lock is requested, eg loginctrl lock-session
Unlock	Sent when an unlock is requested
SessionNew	When a session is created

And probably others but I am not an expert of Systemd (yet!). I need to do some tests.

To see an example on how to lock your screen before suspend, check the myConfig.py file:

def on_PrepareForSleep(self, payload):
    if 'true' in payload:
        logger.info("Locking the screen before suspend")
        self.command.shell_command("hyprlock")

Yes, it's literally 4 lines to add to your class!

Idle event

This is a simple idle method that compute the number of seconds elapsed since the last hyprland activity sent through IPC.

It's a workaround: if you launch a text editor and type in this editor without changing any focus, the timer will be increased without being reset to 0.

For my usage, it's enough, but for a real idling program, use hypridle.

To use it, you have two choices:

• Setting up an on_idle hook. This method takes the elapsed time as the argument. Then you are free to implement your workflow in this method.
• Use set_idle_config and on_idle, which is much easier as it will compute everything for you.

def set_idle_config(self):
    self.add_timeout(10, ['brightnessctl -s set 0'], ['brightnessctl -r'])
    self.add_timeout(20, ['hyprlock &'])
    self.add_timeout(720, ['hyprctl dispatch dpms off'], ['hyprctl dispatch dpms on'])

def on_idle(self, time_elapsed):
    self.do_idle_with_config(time_elapsed)

You can add unlimited "timeouts" with self.add_timeout. This method takes three parameters:

• The timeout in itself (10 seconds, 20 seconds, 720 seconds respectively)
• The commands to apply when the elapsed time above the value
• The commands to apply when the elapsed time is reseted due to an activity

Available helpers

There are two main helpers:

• hyprctl_command to send a command with hyprctl and to get the result in JSON
• shell_command to send a shell command and returns the result

Any shell command ending with '&' will be executed asynchronously. This allows to prevent any blocking thread. For instance, if you launch hyprlock, don't forget to add a '&' otherwise no other event can be processed anymore by Pyland.

See the file libs/Command.py for more information.

Contributions

• I don't have enough knowledge to know how to connect to the Wayland API from Python, to interact directly with wlroots protocols. It would be a nice addition
• Integrating other DBUS services should be easy with Pyland (type dbusctl to list all avalable DBUS on your system).
• If someone has a solution to get the real idle time from Hyprland/Wlroots, it would be welcomed. This value is not exposed in DBUS signals.

If you see some bugs or propose patches, feel free to contribute.

Thanks

Thanks to the developer(s) of Hyprland for their fantastic compositor. I tried so many ones in the past, and this has been Hyprland that convinced me to do the switch from KDE :-)