Caelestia dots for NixOS

[Markus328]

What do you think about a port of caelestia-dots/caelestia for Nix? Currently you need to add everything manually and even though you do so it will not use the power of Nix.

I've started writing a very flexible module for caelestia-dots:

  programs.caelestia-dots = {
    enable = true;
    cli.enable = true;
    shell = {
      enable = true;
      settings.paths.wallpaperDir = ./res/wallpapers;
    };
    hypr = {
      variables = {
        editor = "nvim";
        fileExplorer = "dolphin";
        terminal = "footclient";
        kbTerminal = "Ctrl+Alt, a";
        kbTerminalFallback = "Super+Alt, a"; # You can create new vars
      };

      settings.source.__prepend = ["$hl/source-first.conf"]; # source a config before all others

      hyprland = {
        gestures.enable = false;
        execs.settings.exec-once = ["foot --server"];
        general.settings = {
          general.layout = "master";
          dwindle = _: {}; # Clear options
          master.allow_small_split = true;
        };
        env.settings.env = _: [(builtins.elemAt _ 0)] ++ ["MOZ_ENABLE_WAYLAND=1"]; # Clear all vars but first, then add one more
        keybinds.settings = {
          bind = ["$kbTerminalFallback, exec, foot"]; # Add new binds
        };
      };
    };
  };

This home manager module (it will have NixOS module also, to set up some stuff only possible in NixOs configuration) uses a structured approach of modules and submodules with enable, settings and extraConfig options, allowing to extend the default configs in dots. For me, it needs the entire configs to be written using Nix and updated manually, for the module user, everything works out of box, while allows powerful overrides.

For even more flexibility, the module uses the power of infuse.nix to make the overrides much easier to be done, easy appending, prepending, replacing, removing, clearing of defaults and more.

Firstly, I've spent time trying to port the hypr configs, the files generated are these for now:

# in ~/.config/hypr
├── hypridle.conf -> /nix/store/sqgn5i82xnjkq64j11r4d2ab3m4njk9d-hm_hyprhypridle.conf
├── hyprland
│   ├── animations.conf -> /nix/store/m71630kf7gyxvrbz7jjshnflv04x6m70-hm_hyprhyprlandanimations.conf
│   ├── decoration.conf -> /nix/store/p9r8hingf5rdnnwkz7nbfm1mnqgl28cy-hm_hyprhyprlanddecoration.conf
│   ├── env.conf -> /nix/store/3j1kpkg5xs0nfxk28jqyk6i0sj1asqph-hm_hyprhyprlandenv.conf
│   ├── execs.conf -> /nix/store/k8y5schk4zwyqipjjpxqwrz6rpqba43x-hm_hyprhyprlandexecs.conf
│   ├── general.conf -> /nix/store/zd4ky353gp22vd8calskpbch1hh74dmy-hm_hyprhyprlandgeneral.conf
│   ├── group.conf -> /nix/store/igpvs2f8q35i0iab62cbkcl6vx3802jh-hm_hyprhyprlandgroup.conf
│   ├── input.conf -> /nix/store/9lfmxbnd16mnilrdnqb5113zxzyxpcd6-hm_hyprhyprlandinput.conf
│   ├── keybinds.conf -> /nix/store/7vdbc6c2g45k57bgdwd4zydy4m49hhkq-hm_hyprhyprlandkeybinds.conf
│   ├── misc.conf -> /nix/store/8gc8sk0y0sl9wm1jndpxwfjn943j0rbm-hm_hyprhyprlandmisc.conf
│   └── rules.conf -> /nix/store/qrbrkzwpzz1l549a0nlxd2jzw8mlpxq4-hm_hyprhyprlandrules.conf
├── hyprland.conf -> /nix/store/pa9pqncwk0py0j7vfyj9dikpf4ldhh68-hm_hyprhyprland.conf
├── scheme
│   └── default.conf -> /nix/store/mx5h4bc9fhyxwbl6g18lkw8wmg5x9p12-hm_hyprschemedefault.conf
└── variables.conf -> /nix/store/iscfiw90k9pfwr315w4hkv59b0mm2zdm-hm_hyprvariables.conf

With gestures module disabled.

[Markus328]

I am currently looking now for a better way to edit or delete default bindings (without the need to rewrite them all), most of them needs tweaks for me. After fixing this and adding a proper caelestia module I will publish the repo with the source and follow adding much more modules (such as btop, foot, uswm, shell.fish,zsh,bash (yes, at least the wrap_term_launch stuff))

[soramanew]

I actually just use hjem to link all the files into place and it works fine. For editing binds and other stuff, there are some variables available that you can change. If a variable doesn't exist for a certain bind, you can use unbind to remove it then bind to replace it

[Markus328]

Really Hyprland has a good system of config but its not true for all your home apps and many times home manager is just simpler if you know already how to use.

And if someone wants they can do a conditional config for each host they want if its the case (per example, disable animations only on the very old laptop with dumb gpu) etc etc

[Markus328]

I actually just use hjem to link all the files into place and it works fine. For editing binds and other stuff, there are some variables available that you can change. If a variable doesn't exist for a certain bind, you can use unbind to remove it then bind to replace it

For binds anyway this is a good idea to just unbind and bind it again to edit those binds

[Markus328]

There's a public repo now, it's very experimental and the dotfiles were tested only inside a VM. I will override them on my own dotfiles so I can test and fix some bugs and enhance features. While I do that, I should update and add other modules (caelestia-nix modules!) as well