Theming

Themes are defined in config/themes.toml. Change the active theme and save to update dwm, Quickshell, terminal, GTK, and Qt styling. No restart needed.

[active]
theme = "tokyonight"   # ← change this line to switch themes

The managed transaction helper is the safe command-line interface for theme changes:

dwm-settings-theme preview preview-1 15 dracula
dwm-settings-theme keep preview-1       # confirm before the timeout
dwm-settings-theme revert preview-1     # or restore immediately
dwm-settings-theme abandon preview-1    # accept a conflicting external edit
dwm-settings-theme apply gruvbox
dwm-settings-theme reset                # restore the managed default selection

An unconfirmed preview restores the exact previous themes.toml bytes and mode automatically. Apply and reset preserve comments, custom theme sections, and unrelated appearance settings. If an operation is interrupted after its atomic write, inspect and restore it with:

dwm-settings-theme recovery-status
dwm-settings-theme recover

Recovery refuses to overwrite an externally changed theme file.

Available Themes

Dark

Light

Border Size

[appearance]
borderpx = 1   # 0 = no border, 1 = thin (default), 2-3 = thicker

What Each Theme Controls

Each [theme.name] section sets colors for all components:

Quickshell derives its opaque surfaces, text, borders, accent, success, warning, and danger colors from the active theme’s existing dwm and terminal color keys.

Creating a Custom Theme

Add a new section to themes.toml:

[theme.mytheme]
normfgcolor     = "#cdd6f4"
normbgcolor     = "#1e1e2e"
normbordercolor = "#313244"
selfgcolor      = "#cdd6f4"
selbgcolor      = "#89b4fa"
selbordercolor  = "#89b4fa"

term_bg         = "#1e1e2e"
term_fg         = "#cdd6f4"
term_cursor     = "#f5e0dc"
# ... term_color0-15 ...
dark_mode       = true
gtk_theme       = "Lyona-mytheme"

Then set theme = "mytheme" under [active] and save.

gtk_theme may name any installed GTK theme. Leaving it out is usually the right choice: make install generates a Lyona-<name> GTK theme from every palette in this file, and that generated theme is what a palette falls back to. Regenerate one by hand with:

scripts/lyona-gtk-theme generate mytheme config/themes.toml ~/.local/share/themes/Lyona-mytheme

Applications built on libadwaita ignore custom GTK themes by design and stay in their own light or dark palette regardless of this setting.

Applying Themes via Control Center

Open the Control Center with Super + F1, navigate to Appearance → Select Theme, and pick from the list. The theme switches immediately.

Wallpapers

Place images in ~/Pictures/backgrounds/. Open Settings → Appearance to select an image, choose its fit, preview it for 30 seconds, apply it, or reset to the random session default. Use Super + Shift + W or dwm-settings-wallpaper randomize for a one-off random wallpaper in the current session, or persist a specific image and fit from a terminal:

dwm-settings-wallpaper apply "$HOME/Pictures/backgrounds/mywall.jpg" fill

Supported fit modes are center, fill, max, scale, and tile. Preview a choice for 30 seconds before keeping it:

token="wallpaper-$$"
dwm-settings-wallpaper preview "$token" 30 \
  "$HOME/Pictures/backgrounds/mywall.jpg" max
dwm-settings-wallpaper keep "$token"

Use dwm-settings-wallpaper reset to return to the session’s random-fill default. If a saved image is removed, login remains usable and falls back to that default until another image is selected or the setting is reset.

Fonts and Text Size

Open Settings -> Appearance to select an installed Fontconfig family and a managed shell text scale from 80, 90, 100, 110, 125, or 150 percent. The icon font remains the shipped Meslo Nerd Font even when ordinary interface text uses another family, so changing fonts cannot remove panel or menu glyphs.

Preview changes for 30 seconds before keeping them, or apply and reset from a terminal:

token="font-$$"
dwm-settings-font preview "$token" 30 "Noto Sans" 1.25
dwm-settings-font keep "$token"

dwm-settings-font apply "Noto Sans" 1.10
dwm-settings-font reset

The setting owns only font.conf under the lyona XDG configuration directory. A malformed file falls back to the existing Meslo family at 100 percent without preventing shell startup. GTK and Qt application font policy is intentionally deferred to the separate toolkit-control slice.

Boot Menu

The GRUB boot menu uses the CyberRe theme, selected by the installer on machines that boot with GRUB. It is not part of the palette system above – GRUB reads its own theme long before the session starts, so it does not follow the dark/light theme you pick in Settings.

lyona-grub-theme status    # detected bootloader and selected theme
lyona-grub-theme list      # installed themes
lyona-grub-theme apply     # select CyberRe (or apply <name>)
lyona-grub-theme remove    # back to the default GRUB appearance

Applying or removing a theme edits /etc/default/grub and regenerates /boot/grub/grub.cfg, so it needs root and backs the file up first. See Install for exactly which keys it changes.

Machines that boot with systemd-boot – which includes installs made from the lyona image – have no GRUB menu to theme, and the commands above report that and do nothing.