App and CLI

app is a singleton instance of an Gtk.Application.

Depending on Gtk version import paths will differ

import app from "astal/gtk3/app"
import app from "astal/gtk4/app"

TIP

The app instance's DBus name is prefixed with io.Astal. If you are writing a shell which is meant to be distributed you might want to avoid using app and instead create a subclass of Gtk.Application or Adw.Application while also following the packaging conventions.

Example App implementation

import Astal from "gi://Astal?version=4.0"
import Gio from "gi://Gio?version=2.0"
import GObject from "gi://GObject?version=2.0"
import Gtk from "gi://Gtk?version=4.0"
import { programInvocationName, programArgs } from "system"
import { createRoot } from "gnim"

class App extends Gtk.Application {
  static {
    GObject.registerClass(this)
  }

  constructor() {
    super({
      applicationId: "my.awesome.app",
      flags: Gio.ApplicationFlags.HANDLES_COMMAND_LINE,
    })
  }

  vfunc_command_line(cmd: Gio.ApplicationCommandLine): number {
    const args: string[] = cmd.get_arguments()

    if (cmd.isRemote) {
      console.log("invoked from remote instance")
      cmd.print_literal("hello from primary instance")
      cmd.done()
    } else {
      this.main(args)
    }

    return 0
  }

  private main(args: string[]) {
    createRoot((dispose) => {
      this.connect("shutdown", dispose)

      return (
        <Astal.Window name="bar" application={this}>
          <Gtk.CenterBox>
            <Gtk.Label $type="center" label="My Awesome Bar" />
          </Gtk.CenterBox>
        </Astal.Window>
      )
    })
  }
}

const app = new App()
app.runAsync([programInvocationName, ...programArgs])

Entry point

app.ts

app.start({
  main() {
    // setup anything
    // instantiate widgets
  },
})

Instance identifier

You can run multiple instances by defining a unique instance name.

app.start({
  instanceName: "my-instance", // defaults to "ags"
  main() {},
})

Messaging from CLI

If you want to interact with an instance from the CLI, you can do so by sending a request. A request is an argument array.

app.start({
  requestHandler(argv: string[], response: (response: string) => void) {
    const [cmd, arg, ...rest] = argv
    if (cmd == "say") {
      return response(arg)
    }
    response("unknown command")
  },
  main() {},
})

The response function can be called once per request. ags request command will wait until a response is given at which point it will print it and exit.

ags request say hi
# hi

A request handler can also be defined by connecting to the request signal.

app.connect("reqeust", (app, [cmd, arg, ...rest], response) => {
  if (cmd === "say") {
    response(arg)
  }
})

Toggling Windows by their name

In order for the application to know about your windows, you have to register them. You can do this by specifying a unique name and calling app.add_window()

import app from "astal/gtk4/app"

function Bar() {
  return (
    <window name="Bar" $={(self) => app.add_window(self)}>
      <box />
    </window>
  )
}

You can also invoke app.add_window() by simply passing app to the application prop.

import app from "astal/gtk4/app"

function Bar() {
  return (
    <window name="Bar" application={app}>
      <box />
    </window>
  )
}

WARNING

When assigning the application prop make sure name comes before. Props are set sequentially and if name is applied after application it won't work.

Toggle the visibility of windows using the ags CLI.

ags toggle Bar

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In JavaScript you can get a window instance and toggle it using app.get_window()

const bar = app.get_window("Bar")
if (bar) bar.visible = true

Clients

The first time you invoke app.start() (for example with ags run) the main block gets executed. While that instance is running any subsequent execution of the app will simply invoke a request. For example running ags run again will be the equivalent of running ags request

app.ts

app.start({
  requestHandler(argv, response) {
    console.log("request", ...argv)
    response("hello from main instance")
  },
  main(...argv: string[]) {
    console.log(...argv)
  },
})