Desktop integration

Roue has three front doors: the wheel (opened from Files with Ctrl+Shift+right-click or the right-click menu, by the hotkey, or by Shift-drag on X11), the Files right-click menu, and the command line. This page covers how they plug into your desktop.

The wheel#

The wheel is a ring of slices, one per preset. It shows up to seven presets that fit your files best, most relevant first, and a last slice, More…, that opens the full panel with every preset. It never shows a format your files can't become: until it knows the files, it's an empty ring.

It comes in two forms:

• At the pointer, over a lightly dimmed screen, when Roue already knows the files: Ctrl+Shift+right-click or Convert with Roue… in Files, the hotkey with files selected in Files, or Shift-drag on X11. Click a slice to convert. Click outside the wheel, press Esc, or switch to another window to cancel.
• As a small empty ring you drop files onto, when you press the hotkey anywhere else. The slices appear for the file you drag over it. Click it (or press Enter) to choose files instead. Files you copied with Ctrl+C are picked up when it opens (once per copy), and Ctrl+V reads the clipboard again.

After you pick a slice, the wheel closes and the conversion runs in the background. A notification says when it's done.

On Wayland, the wheel at the pointer sits on a see-through layer that covers the screen: the desktop doesn't let apps place windows, but it does tell a window under the pointer where the pointer is. GNOME paints black behind full-screen windows, so on Wayland that layer is a maximised window (the top bar and the dock stay visible). It closes as soon as another window takes focus, so it never lingers invisibly over your desktop.

On X11 the hotkey's wheel opens centred on the pointer and stays on top. On GNOME's Wayland session the GNOME helper does the same; on other Wayland desktops the desktop decides where it goes.

The GNOME helper#

Wayland apps can't keep a window above the others, or open it at the pointer. On GNOME, a small Shell extension does both for Roue's wheel:

• the hotkey's wheel opens centred on the pointer;
• the wheel stays above the window you drag from (otherwise clicking a file in a maximised Files window would hide it).

It touches only Roue's wheel window, nothing else. Its id is roue@guilyx.github.io. The .deb installs it; roue setup, Set Up Roue or Preferences > General turn it on. GNOME 42–44 (Ubuntu 22.04, Debian 12) need an older extension format: there, turning it on also puts a copy in that format in ~/.local/share/gnome-shell/extensions/. GNOME only discovers new extensions when your session starts, so after a fresh install it starts the next time you log in.

Without it Roue still works: the wheel opens where GNOME puts new windows, and Ctrl+Shift+right-click in Files avoids dragging altogether. Turn it off in Preferences > General or in GNOME's Extensions app.

The hotkey#

Super+Shift+D opens the wheel. Super is the Windows key.

• With files selected in Files (Files in front), the wheel opens at the pointer for them. Roue asks its Files extension what's selected, so this needs the Files menu to be installed.
• Anywhere else, it opens the empty ring to drop files on.

Wayland doesn't let apps grab keys for themselves, so Roue registers an ordinary custom shortcut, exactly like the ones you'd create in Settings, that runs roue wheel.

GNOME (and Ubuntu, Pop!_OS)#

roue setup sets it for you. Pick another combination with:

roue setup --binding '<Super><Alt>c'

You'll find it in Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Custom Shortcuts as "Roue: open the wheel". Turn it on or off from Preferences > General in Roue.

KDE Plasma#

System Settings > Shortcuts > Add New > Command or Script. Command: roue wheel. Shortcut: Meta+Shift+D.

Xfce#

Settings > Keyboard > Application Shortcuts > Add. Command: roue wheel.

Cinnamon, MATE, others#

Add a custom shortcut running roue wheel in your keyboard settings. roue setup prints these instructions when it can't set the key itself.

Prefer the full panel? Point the shortcut at roue panel instead.

The panel#

The full panel shows every preset as a tile, grouped into Images, Video, Audio and Documents. Open it with the wheel's More… slice, from the app launcher, or with roue panel.

• Drop files on a tile. Tiles that can't take them fade out while you drag.
• Copy, then open: files you copied in Files (Ctrl+C) are picked up when the panel opens. Click a tile to convert them. Ctrl+V pastes them again.
• Click a tile with nothing staged to pick files with a file chooser.
• Type to search ("discord", "gps", "gif"…). Enter runs the first match.
• Esc hides the panel. Conversions keep going; a notification tells you when they're done.

Why the drop targets don't close when you click elsewhere#

On Wayland, starting a drag in Files gives Files the focus. If the hotkey's wheel, or the panel, closed when it lost focus, it would vanish exactly when you need it. So it stays open until you press Esc, drop something, or close it.

Dragging onto a covered window (GNOME)#

With the GNOME helper on, the wheel stays on top, so this doesn't happen to it. If a maximised window covers the panel, start dragging your file, press Super to open the Activities overview, hover the Roue window until it comes forward, then drop. Or skip the drag: Ctrl+Shift+right-click the file in Files.

Staying in the background#

After the first open, Roue keeps running quietly so the hotkey shows the wheel instantly. Turn this off in Preferences > General > Stay in the background, or stop it any time with roue quit (or Quit in the panel's main menu).

Shift-drag (X11 only)#

On an X11 session, hold Shift while dragging any file, from any app. The wheel springs open around the pointer, with the presets that fit that file. Release Shift, then drop on a slice; let go anywhere else and it goes away again.

Why release Shift? To file managers, Shift means "move this file". Roue only ever copies, so it refuses a drop while Shift is held instead of letting the source app think the file was moved. The middle of the wheel says "Release Shift to drop" until you do.

It works by noticing when a drag starts on the X server, so it needs python3-xlib (pulled in by the .deb). Turn it off in Preferences > General > Shift-drag.

Wayland keeps each app's drags private by design, so no app can see a drag start elsewhere. There, use Ctrl+Shift+right-click in Files or the hotkey. GNOME 49 and newer (Ubuntu 25.10, 26.04) have no X11 session at all, so Shift-drag is for X11 sessions of Xfce, MATE, Cinnamon and the like.

Files (Nautilus) right-click menu#

Right-click files and choose Convert with Roue…. The wheel opens at the pointer with the presets that fit every selected file, most relevant first. The item only appears when at least one preset fits.

Ctrl+Shift+right-click skips the menu: Files selects the file you click, as usual, and the wheel opens instead of the menu. Click a file that's already selected and the wheel takes the whole selection. Where nothing fits (a folder, empty space), Files' own menu shows as usual. Files has no API for mouse shortcuts, so the extension listens to right-clicks on Files' windows just before Files does.

• Needs the Nautilus Python extension host: python3-nautilus on Debian/Ubuntu, nautilus-python on Fedora, python-nautilus on Arch.
• The .deb installs the extension system-wide. Otherwise roue setup adds it to ~/.local/share/nautilus-python/extensions/.
• Works with all three Files extension APIs: 3.0 (Nautilus 42, Ubuntu 22.04), 4.0 (Nautilus 43–48, Ubuntu 24.04) and 4.1 (Nautilus 49+, Ubuntu 25.10 and 26.04).
• Restart Files once to load it: nautilus -q, or the Restart Files button in Set Up Roue. Files' open windows close.
• It also tells the hotkey what's selected: the Roue app asks io.github.guilyx.Roue.Files.GetSelection on /io/github/guilyx/Roue/Files (bus name org.gnome.Nautilus). It answers only while a Files window is in front, or was a moment ago (the hotkey's key grab takes the focus away briefly on X11).
• Folders and remote locations without a local path don't get the menu.

The menu asks the Roue app (over D-Bus, starting it if needed) to show the wheel, so the wheel, progress and notifications all come from one place. It passes along an activation token so the desktop lets the wheel come to the front. If the app can't be reached, the menu runs roue wheel instead.

Nemo, Dolphin and Thunar menus are on the roadmap.

Notifications#

When a conversion finishes and the panel isn't in front (always the case after the wheel), you get a desktop notification with Open and Show in Folder. Clicking it shows the result in Files. Roue passes on the activation token GNOME sends with the click, so the app it opens is allowed to come to the front. Turn notifications off in Preferences > Results.

D-Bus#

Roue is a single-instance app with the id io.github.guilyx.Roue. The .deb (or roue setup) installs a D-Bus service file, so calling it starts the app when it isn't running.

Actions you can trigger from scripts:

gdbus call --session --dest io.github.guilyx.Roue \
  --object-path /io/github/guilyx/Roue \
  --method org.gtk.Actions.Activate \
  run-preset "[<('jpg', ['/home/me/IMG_2041.HEIC'])>]" "{}"

Files Roue installs#

They live under /usr/share with the .deb, or under ~/.local/share with roue setup. roue setup --remove deletes the ones it added, turns the GNOME helper off and removes the hotkey.

The .deb also adds Roue's update channel, /etc/apt/sources.list.d/roue.sources, with its key in /usr/share/keyrings/roue-archive-keyring.gpg. See Updates.