pluto

Pluto is a drop shelf for Wayland. Drag something to the edge of the screen, drop it on the shelf that slides out, go find where it needs to go, then drag it back out. Works with files, folders, text, links and images from the browser.

Built for Hyprland. Runs on any compositor that has wlr-layer-shell and a tray that speaks StatusNotifierItem (waybar, quickshell and the like).

What it does

The shelf is invisible until you need it: a 3 px strip on the right edge of the screen. Drag anything onto that strip and a panel slides in at your pointer. Drop, and the item is parked there. Files and folders are kept by reference, so nothing is copied or moved until you drag it somewhere. Images dragged out of a browser are saved locally (the pixels the browser hands over, or a download of the image URL when it only hands over a link), so they survive closing the tab, and copying one puts the actual image on the clipboard.

You can keep several shelves. Starting a new one puts the current one behind the tray icon with everything still on it, and you can switch back whenever. Shelves are saved to disk and come back after a restart.

Install

1. System libraries (GTK 4, gtk4-layer-shell, gobject-introspection, cairo):

   sudo pacman -S gtk4 gtk4-layer-shell gobject-introspection cairo        # Arch
   sudo apt install libgtk-4-dev libgtk4-layer-shell-dev libgirepository-2.0-dev libcairo2-dev  # Debian/Ubuntu
   sudo dnf install gtk4-devel gtk4-layer-shell-devel gobject-introspection-devel cairo-devel  # Fedora
   

2. The tool itself, any one of these:

   uv tool install pluto-shelf                            # from PyPI
   pipx install pluto-shelf                               # same, with pipx
   uv tool install git+https://github.com/HACKE-RC/pluto  # latest from GitHub
   

3. Hyprland rules, keybind and autostart, then start it:

   pluto install
   hyprctl reload
   pluto
   

pluto install writes ~/.config/hypr/pluto.conf and adds one source line to your hyprland.conf; see docs/install.md for what is in it, how to undo it, and notes for other compositors.

Usage

Open the panel in one of three ways:

• drag something to the right edge of the screen
• shake the mouse left and right while holding something
• press Super+Shift+Z (this also works mid-drag)

Drag items out one at a time, or select several with Ctrl or Shift and drag them together. The "drag all" handle at the bottom takes everything at once. Drag-outs copy by default, so the original file and the shelf item both stay where they are.

Keys while the panel is open:

Right-click for the menu: rename, new shelf, switch shelf, clear, delete. Double-click the shelf name to rename it. The x in the corner closes the panel.

From the command line:

pluto              start the daemon
pluto toggle       open or close the panel
pluto new          start a new shelf, keep the current one in the tray
pluto add FILE...  put files, folders, URLs or text on the shelf
pluto quit         stop the daemon

More

• Installing
• Configuration
• How it works, and what Wayland and Hyprland make awkward

License

MIT, see LICENSE.