An infinite canvas plugin for Hyprland. Zoom out to see all your windows at once, pan around a vast virtual desktop, and zoom back in to work — like Google Maps for your desktop.
⚠️ Super alpha. This plugin hooks deep into Hyprland's internals. It may set your computer on fire, cause a divide by zero when maximizing an application, and form a black hole ending our universe. You have been warned.
Super+Scroll to zoom in/out. Super+Left-Drag on empty space to pan.
Works with both native Wayland apps and XWayland apps (Chrome, Discord, Electron).
Requires Hyprland and its development headers. The plugin builds against whatever version you have installed — the ABI version is pulled from your headers at compile time.
# build
make
# load into your running Hyprland session
make install
# or if you're iterating (bypasses dlopen cache)
make reloadTo load it automatically, add to your hyprland.conf:
plugin = /path/to/hypr-canvas.so
To unload:
make unloadThe plugin hooks 12 functions inside Hyprland to intercept rendering, input, coordinate mapping, and popup positioning. No source patches needed — it's a pure plugin using createFunctionHook.
Physical space: monitor pixels (0,0)-(7680,2160)
hardware cursor always lives here
│
position() hook
offset + physical / zoom
│
▼
Canvas space: infinite plane where windows exist
at their normal Hyprland positions
Rendering transforms canvas → physical: screenPos = (canvasPos - offset) * zoom
Input transforms physical → canvas: canvasPos = offset + screenPos / zoom
| Hook | What it does |
|---|---|
onMouseWheel |
Super+scroll → cursor-anchored zoom |
onMouseButton |
Super+left-click on empty desktop → start/stop pan |
onMouseMoved |
Pan drag via raw delta (divided by zoom for canvas-space movement) |
position() |
Core coordinate remap — returns canvas coords to all 16 callers |
closestValid() |
Disables cursor clamping so pointer can reach beyond monitor bounds |
getMonitorFromCursor() |
Returns focused monitor when canvas coords are out of bounds |
getMonitorFromVector() |
Same fallback for position-based lookups (vectorToWindowUnified etc.) |
shouldRenderWindow() |
Forces all windows visible when zoomed out |
CRenderPass::render() |
Expands damage region to full virtual viewport |
renderAllClientsForWorkspace() |
Applies zoom transform via SRenderModifData + clears framebuffer |
applyPositioning() |
Expands popup constraint box so menus aren't clamped to monitor |
waylandToXWaylandCoords() |
Converts canvas→physical for XWayland apps (Chrome, Discord) |
Hyprland wasn't designed for viewport transforms. The compositor assumes cursor position = screen position = window position. Breaking that assumption requires intercepting every layer:
- Input layer: the cursor must move 1:1 with the physical mouse, but all coordinate consumers need canvas-space values
- Rendering layer: windows must be offset and scaled, damage regions expanded, render pass simplification disabled
- Protocol layer: XWayland apps use absolute X11 coordinates mapped through a separate transform — needs its own hook
- UI layer: popup menus (xdg_positioner) are constrained to the monitor — needs expanded bounds
- kwin-map: KWin effect prototype that proved the concept. Hit API limits with input routing.
- driftwm: Existing infinite canvas compositor in Rust/smithay. Can't drive ultrawide at native res (no DSC). The coordinate math patterns from driftwm informed our approach.
MIT
