SideQuest Shell for Windows is a lightweight, fully themeable desktop shell for Windows 11,
built for people who love to rice their desktop: tiling and scrolling window management,
a customisable bar, a launcher, a control centre and wallpaper-driven colours. It runs beside Explorer.

Why

Linux desktops like Hyprland, niri and KDE have shown how good a desktop can be when everything is yours to change. SideQuest brings that spirit to Windows 11 without replacing Windows: your apps, games, drivers and updates keep working, and the shell adds the layer on top. It stays small (about 90 MB of RAM), has no telemetry, and every look is a plain text file.

• Window layout that is yours. Tiling, niri-style scrolling columns or plain floating, chosen per monitor.
• A bar you can reshape. Islands, a solid strip or just text; top, bottom or the sides; add, remove and reorder widgets.
• Colours from your wallpaper. Pick a picture and every panel follows it. Light or dark.
• Everything is a file. shell.toml for settings, .slint files for how it looks. Save and it reloads live.

First-run setup

The first time it runs, SideQuest walks you through choosing your setup: a look, tiling / scrolling / floating windows and gaps, where the bar goes and which of its 14 widgets are on, your colours, a wallpaper (with a built-in Wallhaven search), desktop widgets, and the shortcut key. Every choice applies instantly, so you watch your desktop change as you pick. Run it again any time from Run setup at the bottom of Settings.

Window management

• Each monitor has its own layout and its own workspaces (Alt+1..9; Alt+Shift+1..9 sends the window there).
• Focus follows your keys (Alt+H / Alt+L), the mouse wheel with Alt held, or a click on the bar.
• Rules keep programs floating (Steam, a calculator, a video you pinned): type a file name or the name of an open window.
• Windows that are always on top, such as the Snipping Tool's recording bar, are never tiled.
• A coloured focus frame shows which window has the keyboard.
• Minimised windows stay on the bar, dimmed. Click one, or press Shift+Alt+U, to bring it back.

The panels

Control centre volume, brightness, Wi-Fi, sound output, CPU / RAM / battery rings, media controls and a power menu

Calendar today at a glance and a month you can page through

Launcher (Alt+/) apps, open windows, maths, > commands and ? web search

There is also a notification centre (with do-not-disturb), a background apps list (open, hide or end tray apps), a one-click taskbar peek, and optional desktop widgets (a clock and stats card behind your windows).

Settings

Press Alt+S. Everything in shell.toml is also here, with search across every setting.

• Looks: one-click themes (gaps, borders, colours and the bar's style). Save your own and share the file.
• Wallpapers: your pictures as a grid, plus a built-in Wallhaven search (top, latest, random, tags; Set or Save in one click). Colours follow whatever you pick.
• Bar: position, style, size, text size and the widget editor, per screen if you like.
• Rules, Keys (every shortcut), Desktop widgets, Theme (from your wallpaper or one colour).

Install

Download

Grab sidequest-shell-<version>-windows-x64.zip from the Releases page, unzip it anywhere and run sidequest-shell.exe. No installer, no admin rights.

Build from source

You need Windows 11 and a recent Rust toolchain.

git clone https://github.com/finch-au/sidequest-shell.git
cd sidequest-shell/shell
cargo build --release
target\release\sidequest-shell.exe

The first run writes %APPDATA%\SideQuest\shell.toml (every option is documented in it) and %APPDATA%\SideQuest\ui\ (the bar and panels as .slint files).

Good to know

• Alt+Q quits and puts every window back; Alt+Shift+Q restarts.
• If the shell is ever killed, run sidequest-shell.exe --rescue (it also happens on the next start) to bring back windows it had parked out of sight.
• Start with Windows is a switch in Settings > General. It is off until you turn it on.
• The Windows taskbar is hidden while the shell runs and comes back when it exits.

Keys

Alt is the default modifier (Win works too). Settings > Keys lists them all.

Keys	Does
Alt+H / Alt+L	Focus previous / next window (also the mouse wheel with Alt held)
Shift+Alt+H / L	Move the focused window left / right
Alt+M	Cycle layout: tiling, scrolling, floating
Alt+F	Scrolling: one full-width column
Alt+= / Alt+-	Wider / narrower main window or columns
Alt+V / Shift+Alt+V	Float this window / always float this program
Alt+W	Close the focused window
Alt+1..9 / Shift+Alt+1..9	Switch workspace / send the window there
Alt+, / Alt+.	Previous / next screen (add Shift to send the window)
Shift+Alt+U	Bring back the last minimised window
Alt+/	Launcher
Alt+S	Settings
Alt+Q / Shift+Alt+Q	Quit / restart the shell

Make it yours

Three layers, from quick to deep (full guide):

1. Settings. Everything above, no files needed.

2. shell.toml. Comments explain every option; saved changes apply live.

   [bar.main]
   position = "bottom"
   style    = "islands"            # islands | strip | minimal
   start    = ["layout", "workspaces", "windows"]
   end      = ["system", "tray", "network", "volume", "clock"]
   
   [[rules]]
   exe   = "steam.exe"
   float = true

3. The .slint files in %APPDATA%\SideQuest\ui\. Edit bar.slint, widgets.slint, launcher.slint and friends and the shell reloads them as you save. Colours come from the Theme global, so anything you write follows your wallpaper.

You can put any command on the bar with a script widget, and share whole looks as theme packs: one small TOML file.

Under the hood

• Rust 2024, the windows crate, and Slint with its software renderer (no GPU needed, tiny memory).
• One process, no services, no background network use. The only network call is the Wallhaven search, and only while you use it (it goes through the curl.exe that ships with Windows).
• UI files are compiled at runtime, so a broken edit keeps the last good version and prints the error instead of crashing.
• Design notes: docs/bar-design.md.

Limits (for now)

• The software renderer cannot draw transparent windows, so bar "islands" are small rounded windows rather than one transparent bar.
• Notification pop-ups are still drawn by Windows. The shell reads the same notifications for its own centre and do-not-disturb switch.
• Right-click menus of other apps' tray icons belong to the taskbar and are not reachable. The background-apps list opens, hides or ends them, and the taskbar peek shows the real tray for 25 seconds.
• Switching the sound output uses an undocumented Windows interface (the one the Sound settings use); a Windows update could change it.
• Brightness only appears on laptop panels (Windows offers no control for most desktop monitors).

Roadmap

• The shell's own notification pop-ups
• Replacing Explorer's taskbar and desktop (an optional "Core" mode)
• Wi-Fi password entry from the control centre
• A first-run setup wizard
• More built-in looks and community theme packs

Ideas and bug reports are very welcome: see CONTRIBUTING.md.

Similar projects

komorebi and GlazeWM (tiling window managers), YASB and Seelen UI (bars and shell replacements). SideQuest takes its inspiration from niri, Quickshell and Noctalia on Linux.

Licence

GPL-3.0-only. Wallpapers you find through Wallhaven belong to their owners.