Getting Started

Table of Contents

• How to use wal
• Applying the theme to new terminals
• Making the colorscheme persist on reboot
• Using a custom wallpaper setter
• Further Reading: --> Customization

How to use wal

Run wal and point it to either a directory (wal -i "path/to/dir") or an image (wal -i "/path/to/img.jpg") and that's all. wal will change your wallpaper for you and also set your terminal colors.

usage: wal [-h] [-a "alpha"] [-b background] [--backend [backend]]
           [--theme [/path/to/file or theme_name]] [--iterative]
           [--saturate 0.0-1.0] [--preview] [--vte] [-c]
           [-i "/path/to/img.jpg"] [-l] [-n] [-o "script_name"] [-q] [-r] [-R]
           [-s] [-t] [-v] [-e]

wal - Generate colorschemes on the fly

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -a "alpha"            Set terminal background transparency. *Only works in
                        URxvt*
  -b background         Custom background color to use.
  --backend [backend]   Which color backend to use. Use 'wal --backend' to
                        list backends.
  --theme [/path/to/file or theme_name], -f [/path/to/file or theme_name]
                        Which colorscheme file to use. Use 'wal --theme' to
                        list builtin themes.
  --iterative           When pywal is given a directory as input and this flag
                        is used: Go through the images in order instead of
                        shuffled.
  --saturate 0.0-1.0    Set the color saturation.
  --preview             Print the current color palette.
  --vte                 Fix text-artifacts printed in VTE terminals.
  -c                    Delete all cached colorschemes.
  -i "/path/to/img.jpg" Which image or directory to use.
  -l                    Generate a light colorscheme.
  -n                    Skip setting the wallpaper.
  -o "script_name"      External script to run after "wal".
  -q                    Quiet mode, do not print anything.
  -r                    'wal -r' is deprecated: Use (cat
                        ~/.cache/wal/sequences &) instead.
  -R                    Restore previous colorscheme.
  -s                    Skip changing colors in terminals.
  -t                    Skip changing colors in tty.
  -v                    Print "wal" version.
  -e                    Skip reloading gtk/xrdb/i3/sway/polybar

Applying the theme to new terminals

wal only applies the new colors to the currently open terminals. Any new terminal windows you open won't use the new theme unless you add a single line to your shell's start up file.

Add this line to your shell startup file. (.bashrc, .zshrc, .mkshrc etc.)

# Import colorscheme from 'wal' asynchronously
# &   # Run the process in the background.
# ( ) # Hide shell job control messages.
# Not supported in the "fish" shell.
(cat ~/.cache/wal/sequences &)

# Alternative (blocks terminal for 0-3ms)
cat ~/.cache/wal/sequences

# To add support for TTYs this line can be optionally added.
source ~/.cache/wal/colors-tty.sh

Making the colorscheme persist on reboot

On reboot your new colorscheme won't be set or in use. To fix this you have to add a line to your .xinitrc or whatever file starts programs on your system. This wal command will set your wallpaper to the wallpaper that was set last boot and also apply the colorscheme again.

Without this you'll be themeless until you run wal again.

# Add this to your .xinitrc or whatever file starts programs on startup.
# -R restores the last colorscheme that was in use.
wal -R

Using a custom wallpaper setter

wal will detect which wallpaper setter you have installed and use it with the fill mode to set the wallpaper. If you'd like to override this and use either your own setter, a different mode or some different commandline flags you can do the following:

# -n tells `wal` to skip setting the wallpaper.
wal -i img.jpg -n

# Using feh to tile the wallpaper now.
# We grab the wallpaper location from wal's cache so 
# that this works even when a directory is passed.
feh --bg-tile "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"  


# You can create a function for this in your shellrc (.bashrc, .zshrc).
wal-tile() {
    wal -n -i "$@"
    feh --bg-tile "$(< "${HOME}/.cache/wal/wal")"
}

# Usage:
wal-tile "~/Pictures/wall.jpg"
wal-tile "~/Pictures/tiles"