In Wayland environments, particularly with window managers like Hyprland, traditional screenshot tools like Flameshot may not work seamlessly. Fortunately, you can achieve the same functionality using lightweight tools such as grim, slurp, and swappy. These tools allow you to capture screenshots, select regions, and annotate them, all while being optimized for Wayland. In this guide, we’ll walk through setting up these tools as a replacement for Flameshot and binding them to a key in Hyprland on an Arch Linux system.
Step 1: Install the required tools
Ensure you have installed the following tools:
sudo pacman -S grim slurp swappyStep 2: Create a screenshot command
The command grim -g "$(slurp)" - | swappy -f - works as follows:
- grim: Captures the screen or a selected region.
- slurp: Allows you to select a region of the screen using your mouse.
- swappy: Opens the captured screenshot in an editor for annotations.
Step 3: Test the command
Open a terminal and run the following command to capture a region and open it in Swappy for editing:
grim -g "$(slurp)" - | swappy -f -You should be able to select a region with slurp, take a screenshot with grim, and annotate it with swappy.
Step 4: Add a key binding in Hyprland
To bind this to a key in Hyprland, add the following to your Hyprland configuration file (usually located at ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf):
bind=MOD,KEY,exec,grim -g "$(slurp)" - | swappy -f -- Replace
MODwith your preferred modifier (e.g.,SUPERorCTRL). - Replace
KEYwith the key you want to use for the screenshot (e.g.,S).
For example, to bind the command to Super + S:
bind=SUPER,S,exec,grim -g "$(slurp)" - | swappy -f -Step 5: Reload Hyprland config
After updating the configuration, reload Hyprland for the changes to take effect:
hyprctl reloadNow, pressing Super + S (or your chosen keybinding) will allow you to capture and edit screenshots as an alternative to Flameshot.
Original idea: https://discourse.nixos.org/t/screenshots-on-hyprland-on-nixos/29055/4
