> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://mintlify.com/niri-wm/niri/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Animations

> Configure animation behavior in niri compositor

Niri has several animations which you can configure in the same way. Additionally, you can disable or slow down all animations at once.

## Quick Overview

Here's a quick glance at the available animations with their default values:

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    // Uncomment to turn off all animations.
    // You can also put "off" into each individual animation to disable it.
    // off

    // Slow down all animations by this factor. Values below 1 speed them up instead.
    // slowdown 3.0

    // Individual animations.

    workspace-switch {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=1000 epsilon=0.0001
    }

    window-open {
        duration-ms 150
        curve "ease-out-expo"
    }

    window-close {
        duration-ms 150
        curve "ease-out-quad"
    }

    horizontal-view-movement {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }

    window-movement {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }

    window-resize {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }

    config-notification-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=0.6 stiffness=1000 epsilon=0.001
    }

    exit-confirmation-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=0.6 stiffness=500 epsilon=0.01
    }

    screenshot-ui-open {
        duration-ms 200
        curve "ease-out-quad"
    }

    overview-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }

    recent-windows-close {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.001
    }
}
```

## Global Animation Controls

### Disable All Animations

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    off
}
```

### Slow Down Animations

<ParamField path="slowdown" type="number">
  Slow down all animations by this factor. Values below 1 speed them up instead.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    // Slow down all animations by 3x
    slowdown 3.0
}
```

## Animation Types

There are two animation types: easing and spring. Each animation can be either an easing or a spring.

### Easing

This is a relatively common animation type that changes the value over a set duration using an interpolation curve.

<ParamField path="duration-ms" type="number">
  Duration of the animation in milliseconds.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="curve" type="string">
  The easing curve to use. Available options:

  * `"ease-out-quad"` (since 0.1.5)
  * `"ease-out-cubic"`
  * `"ease-out-expo"`
  * `"linear"` (since 0.1.6)
  * `"cubic-bezier"` (since 25.08) - Custom cubic Bézier curve
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-open {
        duration-ms 150
        curve "ease-out-expo"
    }
}
```

#### Custom Cubic Bézier

<Info>
  Available since version 25.08
</Info>

A custom [cubic Bézier curve](https://www.w3.org/TR/css-easing-1/#cubic-bezier-easing-functions). You need to set 4 numbers defining the control points of the curve:

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-open {
        // Same as CSS cubic-bezier(0.05, 0.7, 0.1, 1)
        curve "cubic-bezier" 0.05 0.7 0.1 1
    }
}
```

You can tweak the cubic-bezier parameters on pages like [easings.co](https://easings.co?curve=0.05,0.7,0.1,1) or preview curves at [easings.net](https://easings.net/).

### Spring

Spring animations use a model of a physical spring to animate the value. They notably feel better with touchpad gestures, because they take into account the velocity of your fingers as you release the swipe.

Springs can also oscillate/bounce at the end with the right parameters if you like that sort of thing, but they don't have to (and by default they mostly don't).

<Tip>
  You can use the [Elastic](https://flathub.org/apps/app.drey.Elastic) app to help visualize how the spring parameters change the animation.
</Tip>

A spring animation is configured with three mandatory parameters:

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    workspace-switch {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=1000 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

<ParamField path="damping-ratio" type="number" default="1.0">
  Goes from 0.1 to 10.0:

  * **below 1.0**: underdamped spring, will oscillate in the end
  * **1.0**: critically damped spring, comes to rest in minimum possible time without oscillations
  * **above 1.0**: overdamped spring, won't oscillate
</ParamField>

<Warning>
  Overdamped springs currently have some numerical stability issues and may cause graphical glitches. Therefore, setting `damping-ratio` above `1.0` is not recommended.
</Warning>

<ParamField path="stiffness" type="number">
  Lower stiffness results in a slower animation more prone to oscillation.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="epsilon" type="number">
  Set to a lower value if the animation "jumps" at the end.
</ParamField>

<Tip>
  The spring *mass* (which you can see in Elastic) is hardcoded to 1.0 and cannot be changed. Instead, change `stiffness` proportionally. E.g. increasing mass by 2× is the same as decreasing stiffness by 2×.
</Tip>

## Individual Animations

### workspace-switch

<ParamField path="workspace-switch" type="spring">
  Animation when switching workspaces up and down, including after the vertical touchpad gesture. A spring is recommended for this animation.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    workspace-switch {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=1000 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

### window-open

<ParamField path="window-open" type="easing">
  Window opening animation. Uses an easing type by default.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-open {
        duration-ms 150
        curve "ease-out-expo"
    }
}
```

#### Custom Shader

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.6
</Info>

<Warning>
  Custom shaders do not have a backwards compatibility guarantee. The interface may change as new features are developed.
</Warning>

You can write a custom shader for drawing the window during an open animation. See the [example shader](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/blob/main/resources/examples/open_custom_shader.frag) for full documentation.

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-open {
        duration-ms 250
        curve "linear"

        custom-shader r"
            vec4 open_color(vec3 coords_geo, vec3 size_geo) {
                vec4 color = vec4(0.0);

                if (0.0 <= coords_geo.x && coords_geo.x <= 1.0
                        && 0.0 <= coords_geo.y && coords_geo.y <= 1.0)
                {
                    vec4 from = vec4(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
                    vec4 to = vec4(0.0, 1.0, 0.0, 1.0);
                    color = mix(from, to, coords_geo.y);
                }

                return color * niri_clamped_progress;
            }
        "
    }
}
```

### window-close

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.5
</Info>

<ParamField path="window-close" type="easing">
  Window closing animation. Uses an easing type by default.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-close {
        duration-ms 150
        curve "ease-out-quad"
    }
}
```

Custom shaders are also supported for window-close. See the [example shader](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/blob/main/resources/examples/close_custom_shader.frag) for details.

### horizontal-view-movement

<ParamField path="horizontal-view-movement" type="spring">
  All horizontal camera view movement animations, such as:

  * When a window off-screen is focused and the camera scrolls to it
  * When a new window appears off-screen and the camera scrolls to it
  * After a horizontal touchpad gesture (a spring is recommended)
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    horizontal-view-movement {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

### window-movement

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.5
</Info>

<ParamField path="window-movement" type="spring">
  Movement of individual windows within a workspace. Includes:

  * Moving window columns with move-column-left and move-column-right
  * Moving windows inside a column with move-window-up and move-window-down
  * Moving windows out of the way upon window opening and closing
  * Window movement between columns when consuming/expelling
</ParamField>

This animation does not include camera view movement, such as scrolling the workspace left and right.

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-movement {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

### window-resize

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.5
</Info>

<ParamField path="window-resize" type="spring">
  Window resize animation. Only manual window resizes are animated (when you resize with switch-preset-column-width or maximize-column). Very small resizes (up to 10 pixels) are not animated.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    window-resize {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

Custom shaders are also supported for window-resize. See the [example shader](https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/blob/main/resources/examples/resize_custom_shader.frag) for details.

### config-notification-open-close

<ParamField path="config-notification-open-close" type="spring">
  The open/close animation of the config parse error and new default config notifications. Uses an underdamped spring by default (damping-ratio=0.6) which causes a slight oscillation.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    config-notification-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=0.6 stiffness=1000 epsilon=0.001
    }
}
```

### exit-confirmation-open-close

<Info>
  Available since version 25.08
</Info>

<ParamField path="exit-confirmation-open-close" type="spring">
  The open/close animation of the exit confirmation dialog. Uses an underdamped spring by default (damping-ratio=0.6) which causes a slight oscillation.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    exit-confirmation-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=0.6 stiffness=500 epsilon=0.01
    }
}
```

### screenshot-ui-open

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.8
</Info>

<ParamField path="screenshot-ui-open" type="easing">
  The open (fade-in) animation of the screenshot UI.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    screenshot-ui-open {
        duration-ms 200
        curve "ease-out-quad"
    }
}
```

### overview-open-close

<Info>
  Available since version 25.05
</Info>

<ParamField path="overview-open-close" type="spring">
  The open/close zoom animation of the Overview.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    overview-open-close {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.0001
    }
}
```

### recent-windows-close

<Info>
  Available since version 25.11
</Info>

<ParamField path="recent-windows-close" type="spring">
  The close fade-out animation of the recent windows switcher.
</ParamField>

```kdl theme={null}
animations {
    recent-windows-close {
        spring damping-ratio=1.0 stiffness=800 epsilon=0.001
    }
}
```

## Synchronized Animations

<Info>
  Available since version 0.1.5
</Info>

Sometimes, when two animations are meant to play together synchronized, niri will drive them both with the same configuration.

For example:

* If a window resize causes the view to move, that view movement animation will use the `window-resize` configuration (rather than `horizontal-view-movement`)
* Resizing a window in a column vertically causes other windows to move up or down, using the `window-resize` configuration (rather than `window-movement`)

This is especially important for animated resizes to look good when using `center-focused-column "always"`.

<Tip>
  For the best results, consider using the same parameters for related animations (they are all the same by default):

  * `horizontal-view-movement`
  * `window-movement`
  * `window-resize`
</Tip>