Hyprland Layout Switcher

Hyprland Layout Switcher is a bar widget for Noctalia that shows the tiled layout of the currently active Hyprland workspace and cycles to the next layout on click or via a keybinding. Switching is scoped to the current workspace with a workspace rule, so each workspace keeps its own layout instead of changing the global default.

Plugin

Field	Value
ID	maddingo/hypr-layout-switcher
Entries	Bar widget: toggle; service: poller

Requirements

Hyprland, with hyprctl on PATH — the plugin declares hyprland as a dependency. It reads hyprctl activeworkspace -j and applies layouts through hyprctl eval, so it does nothing on other compositors (Sway, river, Niri, X11 WMs, …).

The monocle and scrolling layouts come from Hyprland layout plugins. If you do not have them installed, cycling onto them is a no-op on Hyprland's side.

Usage

Enable the plugin, then add the widget to a bar section:

noctalia msg plugins enable maddingo/hypr-layout-switcher

In Settings → Bar, add Hyprland Layout Switcher → toggle to the section you want. The widget shows an icon plus the layout name (Dwindle, Master, Monocle, Scrolling).

The poller service runs hyprctl activeworkspace -j once per second and publishes the layout, so the widget stays in sync when you switch workspaces or change the layout from elsewhere.

Clicking the widget cycles to the next layout in dwindle → master → monocle → scrolling → dwindle. Special workspaces (scratchpads) are handled too, matched by name instead of id.

IPC

The poller service accepts a cycle event, which does the same thing as clicking the widget:

noctalia msg plugin maddingo/hypr-layout-switcher:poller all cycle

The signature is plugin <author/plugin:entry> <target[:bar-name]> <event>. poller is a service entry with no visible output, so the target must be all.

Bind it in ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua:

-- Cycle the active workspace's tiled layout
bind("SUPER, Tab, exec, "
  .. "noctalia msg plugin maddingo/hypr-layout-switcher:poller all cycle")

Reload with hyprctl reload. The widget updates immediately, whether you cycle via the keybinding or by clicking.

To jump straight to a specific layout instead of cycling, bind hyprctl directly — the widget picks the change up on its next poll:

bind("SUPER, D, exec, hyprctl keyword general:layout dwindle")
bind("SUPER, M, exec, hyprctl keyword general:layout master")

Note that general:layout changes the global default, whereas the plugin's cycle only affects the active workspace.

Notes

• Commands spawned: hyprctl activeworkspace -j every second while the plugin is enabled, and hyprctl eval '…' on each cycle. No network access, no files written.

• No settings. To change behaviour, fork the repo and add your fork as the plugin source. The layout list lives at the top of service.luau:

  local layouts = { "dwindle", "master", "monocle", "scrolling" }
  

  Trim it to the layouts you actually have installed, and keep the glyphs table at the top of widget.luau in sync. Reload the plugin afterwards.

• The plugin only sets the layout; per-layout options stay in your Hyprland config, for example:

  -- See https://wiki.hypr.land/Configuring/Layouts/Dwindle-Layout/ for more
  hl.config({ dwindle = { preserve_split = true } })
  
  -- See https://wiki.hypr.land/Configuring/Layouts/Master-Layout/ for more
  hl.config({ master = { new_status = "master" } })
  
  -- See https://wiki.hypr.land/Configuring/Layouts/Scrolling-Layout/ for more
  hl.config({ scrolling = { fullscreen_on_one_column = true } })