"Can you trun the tilting off" — making Hyprland float like a Mac Draft
The goal
Hyprland's tiling was driving me up the wall. I'd resize a window exactly where I wanted it, open one more window, and the whole layout reshuffled itself. Windows stay where I put them on a Mac. I wanted that.
Hardware and cost
- 2017 27" iMac running Omarchy (Arch Linux)
- Hyprland 0.56.2
Software stack
- Hyprland — the Wayland compositor
- Omarchy — which configures Hyprland in Lua, not the usual
.conffile
What broke and how it was fixed
First surprise: ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.conf doesn't exist on Omarchy. Generic Hyprland guides all assume it does. Omarchy uses Lua config files instead — ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua.
The clue was hiding in Omarchy's own defaults at /usr/share/omarchy/default/hypr/apps/localsend.lua, which showed the window-rule API in action:
o.window("localsend", { float = true, center = true })The fix was one line appended to ~/.config/hypr/hyprland.lua — the same rule, applied to everything:
o.window(".*", { float = true, center = true })Then hyprctl reload, and Hyprland auto-reloads on save anyway. New windows now open centered, floating, on top — macOS-style. The tiling is gone.
Still open: floating windows sometimes opened smaller than expected, or behind the current window. hyprctl keyword misc:focus_on_activate true was suggested as the fix, but the outcome hasn't been confirmed yet.
Verdict
If you're on Omarchy and the tiling life isn't for you, you don't need to fight Hyprland's config for an afternoon. One Lua line, and it floats. Just remember: Omarchy speaks Lua, not .conf — every generic Hyprland guide on the internet will send you to a file that doesn't exist.