Lucien

Lucien is a refined, lightweight application launcher built with Rust with Wayland environments in mind. It prioritizes speed, minimal memory overhead, and a clean aesthetic.

Key Features

• Fuzzy Search: Quickly find applications with approximate matching.

• Favorites: Mark your most-used apps for instant access. (Note: This feature is currently in active development and may be unstable).

• Providers: Lucien goes beyond simple launching with dedicated modules for:

• Application Launcher: Search and run desktop entries.

• File Browser: Navigate and open files directly from the search bar.

• Clipboard Manager: Access and manage your clipboard history.

• Minimalist Design: Built with the Iced GUI library for a modern look-and-feel and snappiness.

System Requirements

To run Lucien, your environment must meet the following criteria:

• Display Server: While optimized for Wayland, Lucien is no longer strictly locked to it. It can be compiled and run on X11 with minor source-code adjustments to the windowing backend.

• Build Dependencies: Compiling from source requires the Rust toolchain.

Configuration

For a complete starting point, you can find a reference template in the repository: assets/preferences.toml

Lucien looks for settings in the following location: $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/lucien/preferences.toml

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can redefine any of the default keyboard shortcuts within the [keybindings] section of your preferences.toml. For example:

[keybindings]
control-k = "previous_entry"
control-j = "next_entry"

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/Wachamuli/lucien.git
cd lucien
cargo build --release

1. Install to Path For easier access, move the binary to your local bin directory:

cp target/release/lucien ~/.local/bin/

Clipboard Manager Listener

To enable the Clipboard Provider, you must set up a background listener. Because Wayland handles clipboard data strictly, copied items will not be persisted unless a listener captures them.

Most Wayland compositors allow you to execute a command on startup. Add the following command to your compositor's autostart configuration (e.g., in your hyprland.conf or sway/config):

# Ensure lucien is in your $PATH
wl-paste --type text --watch lucien clipboard-listener

Lucien uses a local database to persist your clipboard history. Elements are stored in a SQLite database located at: $XDG_DATA_HOME/lucien/clipboard.db.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter issues, you can check the logs stored in: $XDG_CACHE_HOME/.cache/lucien/.

Alternatively, run Lucien with debug output enabled in your terminal:

RUST_LOG="lucien=debug" lucien