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Settings

The unified Settings application is one place to see and change the desktop: each section shows the current state, changes what it can, and says when a feature is restricted or unavailable on this machine.

Open Control Center with Super+F1, then select Settings from the main menu. You can also run:

dwm-settings open

The Displays section discovers connected outputs and their advertised modes, lets you edit resolution, refresh rate, position, rotation, primary state, and output enablement, and manages named layouts. Choose Apply changes to test the complete layout for 15 seconds, then Keep changes to accept it or Revert to restore the captured layout. Timeout or closing Settings also restores the prior layout. Saved layouts can be reused later; Use at next login installs the selected layout for future X11 sessions after a separate confirmation and administrator authorization. The machine-oriented dwm-settings-display helper exposes discover and watch, complete-layout save and preview, named preview-profile, timed keep, revert, and preview-status, plus authorized install-profile and rollback-system actions. Named layouts live under the lyona XDG config directory. Legacy incomplete layouts remain available to dwm-display-profile, but Settings requires them to be resaved as complete layouts before preview or persistent installation.

The Displays section also sets display scaling. Enter an Xft DPI between 72 and 384, or use the 100%, 125%, 150%, 175%, and 200% presets. Applying writes Xft.dpi to dpi.Xresources in the lyona XDG config directory and merges it into the running X resource database; autostart reapplies it at every login. The pane reports whether the active scale is saved, session-only, or the X server default, and shows the primary output’s measured DPI as a suggestion. Reset removes the saved value and clears Xft.dpi from the running database without disturbing other X resources. Scaling is not a timed preview: only applications started after the change pick up the new value, so restart dwm and the shell to rescale them too. The helper actions are dpi-set, dpi-reset, and the startup-only dpi-apply-saved.

The Input section shows each XInput device by a stable hardware identity and offers only properties its driver exposes. Pointer acceleration, natural scrolling, tap-to-click, keyboard layout, and modifier options are supported when available. Changes use a timed preview with Keep and Revert. Reset is a separate direct action that restores and persists the driver’s default. Kept values are reapplied idempotently at session startup when the device exposes a stable udev or physical sysfs identity. Devices without one remain session-configurable and report that persistence is unavailable. Unsupported per-device properties remain visible with an explanation.

Type to search section names and descriptions. Use Up and Down to move through the filtered sections, Enter to select one, or Escape to close Settings. The Refresh button runs a new bounded capability snapshot; Settings does not add an idle polling timer.

Command-line IPC actions are also available:

dwm-settings open
dwm-settings refresh
dwm-settings status
dwm-settings close

Existing window-rules.toml files are preserved during upgrades. If your file predates Settings, add this entry inside its rules array:

{ title="dwm settings", isfloating=1, alwaysontop=1 },

Saving the file applies the rule through dwm’s normal hot reload. A customized rule with the same title can be retained instead.

The same applies to the update terminal Settings -> System can open: to float it in an older file, add { class="lyona-update-float", isfloating=1 }, (see Updating and Rollback).

The Use at next login display action writes only the managed 90-lyona-display.conf fragment after a separate confirmation and polkit authorization. The installed helper accepts validated display records only, backs up the previous managed next-login fragment, and offers Restore login backup. It does not capture the live XRandR layout. Later phases add connectivity, audio, power, defaults, personalization, and system-management operations.

System

The System section shows the installed lyona version, its commit and source (release tarball, ISO, or developer checkout), and whether the system record, user record, and running binary agree. If they disagree the card turns red and names which of the three differs — that is the one signal a damaged install gives you, so it is impossible to miss.

Check for updates compares the installed version against the configured channel (stable or preview) and reports one of:

  • current: the installed release matches the channel;
  • behind: a newer release is available;
  • ahead: a development checkout newer than the published release;
  • downgrade offered: the channel’s release is older than the installed one. Nothing is installed unless you ask for that version (lyona-update apply --version VERSION --allow-downgrade);
  • unknown: there is no install record to compare, or nothing has been published on the channel yet (lyona’s releases so far are pre-releases, on preview);
  • unavailable: the install record exists but cannot be trusted;
  • offline: the update server could not be reached.

An unreachable server is never treated as an error, and the installed version stays visible either way. When a newer release is available, Update now asks you to confirm the exact target version, then downloads and SHA-256-verifies the release tarball, builds it, backs up the live install, and installs it through one confirmed privileged step. Progress is shown phase by phase (downloading, verifying, building, installing, verifying, restarting) rather than a bare spinner, because the whole operation restarts Quickshell partway through and can take several minutes. Declining the privileged step, or a build failure, costs nothing but time — the live install is never left half-applied.

Switch between the stable and preview channels at any time; preview carries a visible warning that pre-release builds are not release-qualified. Every backup taken before an update is listed with its version and date, each with its own Roll back action.

See Updating and Rollback for the full walkthrough, including how to roll back from a bare TTY if a session will not start — Settings has no way to help with that case, since there is no UI to click when the desktop itself will not come up.

Timezone, locale and network time

Load choices reads the reported timezone or locale catalog before you can select anything — a value must come from that exact list, not free text. Filter with the search box, select one, then Review change… reads a fresh preview against the system’s current state before showing a confirmation card. Apply change cannot be undone once sent; Cancel only dismisses the preview itself without changing anything. System locale changes apply to new sessions — Settings never logs you out to apply one.

Automatic network time shows whether NTP is enabled and whether the clock was synchronized as of the last read, with Review enable…/ Review disable… buttons that go through the same preview-then-confirm flow.

A live change to any of these — from this session or another — invalidates a preview or confirmation prepared against the state it read, with a message asking you to review a fresh one rather than silently applying stale data.

Accounts, printers and software sources

Below the update controls, System also lists Accounts, Password, Printers, and Software sources. Each launches a separate, already-trusted administration tool — Settings shows a confirmation card first (“Open tool?”) because closing Settings afterward does not close the tool or undo anything it does, and a successful launch is not proof the tool’s own work finished. Cancel discards the prepared launch without starting anything.

Printers opens system-config-printer. Password opens passwd in your configured terminal — Settings never reads or stores your password itself. Accounts and Software sources are unavailable on Arch: no account-management GUI or interactive repository editor is packaged for it. Edit /etc/pacman.conf directly for repository changes; see Configuration for where lyona’s own managed files live. A disabled button always states why, rather than leaving it unexplained.

Below the launch buttons, System also lists the accounts and software sources the system currently reports, read-only.