walker

Generates a GTK CSS theme for Walker, a Wayland-native application launcher. The output is a pair of stylesheets — a colour-only file using GTK's @define-color directives plus a complete launcher stylesheet that imports those colour names — both written under Walker's themes/ directory.

Installation

Built into tinct — nothing to install separately. tinct generate -o walker works out of the box.

Quick start

tinct generate -i image -p ~/Pictures/wallpaper.jpg -o walker

Generated files

File	Path	Role
tinct-colours.css	~/.config/walker/themes/tinct-colours.css	Palette. GTK @define-color block. Imported by tinct/style.css and reusable from any custom Walker theme.
tinct/style.css	~/.config/walker/themes/tinct/style.css	Theme. Complete Walker stylesheet — window, search input, list, item rows, scrollbars — that consumes the palette via @import '../tinct-colours.css'.

Generated format

tinct-colours.css

:root {
    --background: #1e1e2e;
    --foreground: #cdd6f4;
    --surface: #313244;
    --accent1: #89b4fa;
    --accent2: #f5c2e7;
    /* ... additional colours */
}

tinct/style.css

@import url("../tinct-colours.css");

window {
    background-color: var(--background);
    border-radius: 12px;
}

#search {
    background-color: var(--surface);
    color: var(--foreground);
}

.item:selected {
    background-color: var(--accent1);
}

Integration

Walker selects a theme by directory name. The plugin writes its stylesheet to ~/.config/walker/themes/tinct/style.css, so the theme name to point Walker at is tinct.

Set this once in Walker's config.toml:

theme = "tinct"

Walker will pick up themes/tinct/style.css (and through it, the shared tinct-colours.css) the next time it starts. If you maintain your own Walker stylesheet, you can ignore tinct/style.css and instead @import '../tinct-colours.css' from your own theme to use just the palette.

Reload behaviour

Automatic

None. Walker does not expose a hot-reload IPC or signal, so the plugin does not attempt one — generation writes the files and exits.

Manual fallback

Walker reads its stylesheet on launch. To pick up a regenerated theme:

pkill -x walker

Walker is normally launched on-demand via a keybind, so the next invocation will load the updated CSS automatically.

Uninstall / revert

1. Remove the config line from your Walker config (only if you set theme = "tinct"):

   sed -i '/theme = "tinct"/d' ~/.config/walker/config.toml

   If you were importing only the palette from your own theme, drop the @import '../tinct-colours.css'; line from your stylesheet instead.

2. Delete the generated files:

   rm -rf ~/.config/walker/themes/tinct ~/.config/walker/themes/tinct-colours.css

3. Reload to drop the theme: kill Walker so the next launch re-reads the (now non-Tinct) theme:

   pkill -x walker

4. External state: this plugin only writes to ~/.config/walker/themes/. No further cleanup is required.

Flags

Flag	Default	Description
--walker.output-dir	~/.config/walker/themes	Override the output directory

Colour role mapping

GTK colour name	Tinct role	Notes
@window_bg_color	background	Launcher window background
@theme_fg_color	foreground	Default text colour
@accent_bg_color	accent1	Selection / hover highlight, item borders
@error_bg_color	danger	Error banner background
@error_fg_color	onDanger	Error banner text

tinct/style.css derives further shades (input background, hover states, keybind footer) via GTK's lighter()/darker()/alpha() helpers, so the above five roles drive the whole launcher's appearance.

Customising the template

Extract the default templates to override them:

tinct plugins templates dump -o walker -l ~/.config/tinct/templates/walker

This creates ~/.config/tinct/templates/walker/tinct-colours.css.tmpl and ~/.config/tinct/templates/walker/tinct.css.tmpl. Tinct uses your version in preference to the embedded default.

See the templating reference for the available functions and palette accessors.

Troubleshooting

Theme not applied after generation

Confirm theme = "tinct" is set in ~/.config/walker/config.toml and that the directory exists:

ls -l ~/.config/walker/themes/tinct/style.css

Then kill any running Walker instance (pkill -x walker); the next launch will pick up the new stylesheet.

Colours look wrong / partially themed

tinct/style.css relies on tinct-colours.css being at ../tinct-colours.css. If you moved or renamed either file, GTK falls back to its defaults for missing variables. Re-running tinct generate -o walker restores the expected layout.

Custom Walker stylesheet stops loading

Walker resolves theme by directory name. If you renamed themes/tinct/ or set theme to a directory that has no style.css, Walker will silently fall back to its built-in theme. Either restore the file or update config.toml to point at your custom theme.

Related plugins

• waybar — status bar styling that shares the @define-color GTK CSS pattern.
• wofi — alternative GTK-based launcher.
• fuzzel — non-GTK launcher for users who prefer a simpler config.