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A plugin for DankMaterialShell that gives windows on niri their own animations when they close and open: they burn away, break into shards, melt, glitch or switch off like an old tube. The edges light up in your accent color.
Step by step with pictures: installation and setup guide.
niri can draw a closing or opening window with a custom shader. The plugin writes such a shader into ~/.config/niri/windowfx.kdl, and niri reloads the file on its own as soon as it changes. A new setting takes effect with the next window that closes or opens.
There are 13 kinds:
| Kind | What happens |
|---|---|
| Ember | the window burns away along a ragged front |
| Dissolve | coarse grain disappears in random order |
| Pixelate | the blocks grow, then fade |
| Shatter | the window breaks into shards that spin and fall |
| Melt | thin columns slide down, each at its own speed |
| Glitch | tears, split color channels and jumping blocks, then it breaks up |
| Tube off | squeezed to a line, then to a dot, with a bright flash |
| Snowstorm | the picture drowns in static and falls apart grain by grain |
| Scan | a beam runs down and leaves a wireframe of the edges behind |
| Code rain | columns of glyphs run down, behind them only code is left |
| Swirl | the window winds up around its center |
| Squares | the tiles shrink in random order |
| Blinds | horizontal slats close |
"Random" picks a kind for every window anew, from a selection you set yourself. Closing and opening each have their own duration. Opening plays a kind backwards: by default a new window appears the way the last one disappeared, only in reverse. Pick "niri default" and the plugin leaves that animation to niri.
"Glowing edges" lets edges, cracks and seams light up in the accent color of DMS. When the accent changes, the plugin writes the file again. Tube off always flashes white, with or without the setting.
If you use the Profiles plugin, enter windowFx under Settings → Plugins → Profiles → Plugins saved with a profile, and every profile keeps its own animations.
DankMaterialShell 1.6.1 or newer and niri 26.04 or newer. The niri version matters for the include line below: niri knows optional=true since 26.04.
The plugin only writes its own file. niri reads it once your niri config includes it, so add this line at the end of ~/.config/niri/config.kdl:
include optional=true "windowfx.kdl"At the end, because an include overrides what comes before it; that way the plugin's animations win over the ones in your main config.
"Neighbours wait" also needs a niri built with an unofficial patch, see Neighbours wait. Everything else works with a stock niri.
From the plugin registry:
dms plugins install windowFx
dms ipc call plugins enable windowFxIt is also listed in DMS under Settings → Plugins → Browse. To install from the repository instead:
git clone https://github.com/satoshoe-dev/dms-window-fx ~/.config/DankMaterialShell/plugins/WindowFx
dms ipc call plugins enable windowFxThen pick a close animation in Settings → Plugins → Window FX. Until you do, niri keeps its own animations.
Settings → Plugins → Window FX
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Close animation | niri default |
| Duration | 600 ms |
| Neighbours wait | off (only with a niri that knows hold-layout) |
| Open animation | Like closing, backwards |
| Open duration | 450 ms |
| Glowing edges | on |
| Random picks from these | Ember, Shatter, Melt, Glitch, Tube off, Code rain |
Both durations go from 150 to 3000 ms.
dms ipc call windowFx kind shatter # close animation: a kind, random or default
dms ipc call windowFx open mirror # open animation: mirror, a kind, random or default
dms ipc call windowFx statusThe kinds are called ember, dissolve, pixel, shatter, melt, glitch, crt, snow, scan, code, swirl, squares and blinds.
A keybind in niri that throws the dice for the next windows:
binds {
Mod+Shift+W { spawn "dms" "ipc" "call" "windowFx" "kind" "random"; }
}When a window closes, niri takes it out of the layout right away. The windows next to it start moving into the gap at once, while the close animation is still drawn on top. With a short fade that hardly shows; with a burning edge or falling shards the effect plays over a window that slides in underneath, and the two run into each other.
I wrote a small patch for niri that adds the option hold-layout to window-close. With it, everything the removal sets in motion (neighbours sliding in, the view scrolling, columns resizing) starts only when the close animation has ended. The patch is not part of niri, and the niri from your distribution does not know the option. Without a niri built with this patch, "Neighbours wait" has no effect.
The patch against niri 26.04 is in the branch hold-layout-v26.04 of my niri fork. It builds like niri itself, see the niri README.
The plugin checks at start whether the installed niri knows the option, by letting niri validate read a tiny file that uses it. If niri knows it, the switch "Neighbours wait" appears on the settings page; if not, it stays hidden and the plugin never writes the option, because a stock niri would reject the whole file.
Switching the plugin off leaves windowfx.kdl as it is, so the last animations stay. To go back to niri's own animations, set both animations to "niri default" first, or delete the file. With optional=true a missing file is fine for niri.
The settings page is available in German, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and Simplified Chinese and follows the language set in DMS. If a translation reads wrong, a pull request is welcome.
I wrote this plugin with help from Claude (Anthropic) and tested every change on my own niri desktop.
MIT