wayscriber

A ZoomIt-like real-time screen annotation tool for Linux/Wayland, written in Rust.

Docs: https://wayscriber.com/docs/

<details> <summary>Screenshots</summary>

</details> <details> <summary>Demo Video</summary>

View demo (wayscriber.com)

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/4b5ed159-8d1c-44cb-8fe4-e0f2ea41d818

</details>

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Table of Contents

• Why wayscriber?
• Features
• Quick Start
• Installation
• Usage
• Getting Help
• Controls Reference
• Configuration
• Troubleshooting
• Contributing
• Roadmap
• Additional Information
• License & Credits

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Why wayscriber?

• Annotate live over any app without disrupting your workflow
• Professional presentation tools — presenter mode, numbered callouts, click highlights, screen freeze, zoom
• Persistent sessions that survive restarts
• Native Wayland performance with ZoomIt-like controls
• Lightweight daemon with instant toggle via keybind

Platform Support

| Platform | Status | Notes | |----------|--------|-------| | Wayland (layer-shell) | ✅ Supported | Hyprland, Sway, River, Wayfire, Niri/Cosmic, Plasma/KWin | | GNOME | ⚠️ Partial | Portal fallback; overlay windowed | | X11 | ❌ | Not supported |

<details> <summary>Tested environments</summary>

• Ubuntu 25.10 GNOME (xdg fallback)
• Fedora 43 KDE (Plasma, layer-shell)
• Fedora 43 GNOME (xdg fallback)
• Debian 13.2 KDE (Plasma, layer-shell)
• Debian 13.2 GNOME (xdg fallback)
• CachyOS 2025-August KDE (Plasma, layer-shell)
• Hyprland on Arch (layer-shell)
• Niri on Arch (layer-shell)

</details>

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Features

Drawing & Editing

• Freehand pen, highlighter, eraser (circle/rect)
• Shapes: lines, rectangles, ellipses (with fill toggle)
• Arrows with optional auto-numbered labels
• Step markers for walkthroughs
• Multiline text & sticky notes with smoothing
• Selection: Alt-drag, <kbd>V</kbd> tool, properties panel
• Duplicate (<kbd>Ctrl+D</kbd>), delete (<kbd>Delete</kbd>), undo/redo
• Color picker, palettes, size via hotkeys or scroll
• Radial menu at cursor (<kbd>Middle-click</kbd>): quick tool/color selection + scroll size adjust

Boards

• Named boards with transparent overlay or custom backgrounds
• Isolated pages per board with auto-contrast pens
• Jump slots: <kbd>Ctrl+Shift+1..9</kbd>
• Toggle whiteboard/blackboard
• Board picker: <kbd>Ctrl+Shift+B</kbd>

Capture & Screenshots

• Full-screen saves, active-window grabs, region capture
• Copy to clipboard or save to file
• Uses grim, slurp, wl-clipboard (installed automatically by deb/rpm/AUR packages; fallback: xdg-desktop-portal)

Session Persistence

• Opt-in per board/monitor canvas + tool state restore
• CLI overrides: --resume-session / --no-resume-session
• Tray checkmark flips config on disk

Toolbars & UI

• Floating toolbars (pin/unpin: <kbd>F2</kbd>/<kbd>F9</kbd>)
• Preset slots, icon or text modes
• Color picker with extended palettes
• Status bar, board/page controls
• Help overlay (<kbd>F1</kbd>), quick reference (<kbd>Shift+F1</kbd>)
• Command palette (<kbd>Ctrl+K</kbd>)

Multi-Monitor

• Move overlay focus between monitors: <kbd>Ctrl+Alt+Shift+←</kbd>/<kbd>Ctrl+Alt+Shift+→</kbd>
• Toolbars and status bar follow the active output when output focus changes
• Optional active output badge in status bar (ui.active_output_badge)
• Output-scoped session restore when session.per_output = true
• GNOME fallback output pinning via ui.preferred_output or WAYSCRIBER_XDG_OUTPUT

Presets

• Save tool + color + size (plus fill/opacity/text) into 3-5 slots
• Apply: <kbd>1</kbd>-<kbd>5</kbd>
• Save: <kbd>Shift+1</kbd>-<kbd>Shift+5</kbd>

Presenter Helpers

• Click highlights with configurable colors/radius/duration
• Persistent ring while click highlight tool is active
• Presenter mode (<kbd>Ctrl+Shift+M</kbd>): hides UI, forces click highlights
• Screen freeze (<kbd>Ctrl+Shift+F</kbd>): pause display while apps run

Callouts & Zoom

• Numbered callouts: auto-numbered arrow labels, step markers
• Reset shortcuts (<kbd>Ctrl+Shift+R</kbd> for arrow labels): see Controls Reference
• Zoom: spotlight details with ZoomIt-style controls
  • Zoom in/out: <kbd>Ctrl+Alt</kbd> + scroll or <kbd>Ctrl+Alt++</kbd>/<kbd>Ctrl+Alt+-</kbd>
  • Reset: <kbd>Ctrl+Alt+0</kbd>
  • Lock view: <kbd>Ctrl+Alt+L</kbd>
  • Pan: middle drag or arrow keys

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Quick Start

1. Install wayscriber (choose one path)

Option A: No CLI (click and install)

• Main app (wayscriber) .deb (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, and other Debian-based distros): wayscriber-amd64.deb
• Main app (wayscriber) .rpm (Fedora, RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Nobara, and other RPM-based distros): wayscriber-x86_64.rpm
• Optional GUI app (wayscriber-configurator) .deb: wayscriber-configurator-amd64.deb
• Optional GUI app (wayscriber-configurator) .rpm: wayscriber-configurator-x86_64.rpm
• Latest release page (all assets)

Install the main app package first. wayscriber-configurator is optional and does not include the wayscriber binary. Open the downloaded package in your software installer (Software Center / Discover), then install. Important: direct GitHub .deb/.rpm installs are one-off installs and do not auto-update. Use repo install commands if you want automatic updates.

Option B: CLI (Debian/Ubuntu repo, auto-updates recommended)

sudo install -d /usr/share/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://wayscriber.com/apt/WAYSCRIBER-GPG-KEY.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/wayscriber.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/wayscriber.gpg] https://wayscriber.com/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wayscriber.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wayscriber
# Optional GUI configurator (separate app)
sudo apt install wayscriber-configurator

Fedora/RHEL CLI users: use the Fedora / RHEL (repo – recommended) section below instead of this apt block.

2. First launch (GUI-first, no terminal needed) Open your app menu/launcher and start Wayscriber. Press <kbd>F1</kbd> or <kbd>F10</kbd> for help; <kbd>Shift+F1</kbd> for quick reference; <kbd>Ctrl+K</kbd> for the command palette; <kbd>Escape</kbd> hides/exits.

3. Daemon mode (preferred for daily use, optional) Daemon mode is faster and keeps session state between toggles. For setup steps, see Usage. Ubuntu GNOME users: <kbd>Super+G</kbd> is a good default because <kbd>Super+D</kbd> is often reserved.

Alternative (one-shot mode):

wayscriber --active

For distro-specific package steps, see Installation. For daemon vs one-shot behavior, see Usage.

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Installation

No terminal install (GitHub Releases)

If you prefer downloading files in a browser instead of using package-manager commands:

1. Open latest release.
2. Install the main app package that matches your distro:
   • wayscriber-amd64.deb (Ubuntu, Debian, Linux Mint, Pop!_OS, and other Debian-based distros)
   • wayscriber-x86_64.rpm (Fedora, RHEL, Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux, Nobara, and other RPM-based distros)
3. Optional: install the configurator package (wayscriber-configurator) after wayscriber:
   • wayscriber-configurator-amd64.deb
   • wayscriber-configurator-x86_64.rpm
   • Note: wayscriber-configurator is a separate app and does not install wayscriber.
4. Launch Wayscriber from your application menu/launcher.
5. Optional later: switch to daemon mode (preferred) using the steps in Usage.

Release packages are one-off installs (no auto-updates). Use repo installs below for automatic updates.

Debian / Ubuntu (repo – recommended)

sudo install -d /usr/share/keyrings
curl -fsSL https://wayscriber.com/apt/WAYSCRIBER-GPG-KEY.asc | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/wayscriber.gpg
echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/wayscriber.gpg] https://wayscriber.com/apt stable main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/wayscriber.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install wayscriber
# Optional GUI configurator
sudo apt install wayscriber-configurator

One-off .deb (no auto-updates):

wget -O wayscriber-amd64.deb https://github.com/devmobasa/wayscriber/releases/latest/download/wayscriber-amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./wayscriber-amd64.deb

Configurator .deb (optional):

wget -O wayscriber-configurator-amd64.deb https://github.com/devmobasa/wayscriber/releases/latest/download/wayscriber-configurator-amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./wayscriber-configurato