Dank Switcher

maintained by: @hkdb

GNOME-style window switcher for DankMaterialShell on Hyprland.

Hold Super, tap Tab to cycle through every window on every workspace (most-recently-used order, starting on the previous window), release Super to focus the selected one. A quick Super+Tab tap jumps straight to the previous window. Holding Super+Tab for a moment (without pressing Tab again) and then releasing leaves the strip open in sticky mode: cycle with Tab or the arrows, confirm with Enter, a click, or another Super press-and-release; Escape or clicking outside cancels. Hyprland follows to the window's workspace.

Icons only, no previews. Themed from DMS's Theme tokens.

Requirements

• Hyprland >= 0.55 with the Lua config (uses hl.dsp.global)
• DankMaterialShell >= 1.5 (plugin daemon surface)
• hyprctl on PATH

Install

./install.sh
dms ipc call plugin-scan scan
dms ipc call plugins enable dankswitcher

Then add the binds to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua:

dofile(os.getenv("HOME") .. "/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugins/dankswitcher/dankswitcher.lua")

and hyprctl reload or restart dms shell. If you prefer to see the binds inline, copy the contents of dankswitcher.lua into your config instead.

To update, git pull and run ./install.sh again, then dms ipc call plugins reload dankswitcher.

Note: dofile runs whatever is in the plugin directory as part of your Hyprland config, which can execute commands. If the plugin directory is updated automatically (or by anyone else), copying the binds inline is the safer choice.

Settings

DMS Settings → Plugins → Dank Switcher: window title on/off, icon size, corner radius, sticky hold time, include scratchpad windows.

IPC

dms ipc call dankswitcher next
dms ipc call dankswitcher prev
dms ipc call dankswitcher select
dms ipc call dankswitcher cancel
dms ipc call dankswitcher toggle

How it works

A daemon surface registers four Hyprland global shortcuts (dankswitcher:next|prev|select|cancel). The first next immediately maps an (initially empty) layer-shell overlay with an exclusive keyboard grab, so a fast Super release isn't missed, then runs hyprctl -j clients, orders by focusHistoryID, and shows the strip. Releasing Super is caught both by the grab (Keys.onReleased) and by a Hyprland release-bind on SUPER_L/SUPER_R that fires select. If Super comes up within the sticky hold time (500ms by default) of the first Tab it's a quick tap (switch right away, even before the strip has loaded); if it was held longer with no further Tab, the overlay stays open in sticky mode. When switching, the overlay closes first, then the window is focused with hl.dsp.focus({ window = "address:..." }) after a short delay so keyboard focus has returned to the compositor.

Based on the overlay/grab approach from QuickSwitch (MIT), minus the Omarchy-shell dependencies and the hl.is_key_down poll that stock Hyprland doesn't support.

Troubleshooting

• hyprctl globalshortcuts should list the four dankswitcher:* entries once the plugin is enabled. If it doesn't, the daemon isn't loaded: check dms ipc call plugins reload dankswitcher output or run qs -v -c dms and look for dankswitcher: lines.
• Super+Tab does nothing: another bind still owns it. hyprctl binds | grep -iB3 -A4 'key: tab$'.
• Overlay opens but release doesn't focus: check hyprctl binds | grep -i super_l shows the release bind.