What is pawlette?

What is it?

Pawlette is a universal theme manager for Meowrch that uses an innovative Git-based theme management system. Each theme is a separate branch, ensuring the safety of your settings and complete change history.

🌟 Key Features

Data safety — impossible to lose user settings when switching themes
Modular architecture — only relevant configuration files are changed
Git-based versioning — complete change history for each theme
Patch system — partial configuration modifications
XDG compatibility — full standards support

🚀 Installation and Setup

Install Pawlette

Install the package from AUR:
```
yay -S pawlette
```
or
```
paru -S pawlette
```
Generate configuration

Create basic configuration:
```
pawlette generate-config
```
View available themes

Check out the list of available themes from the remote store:
```
pawlette get-store-themes
```
Install theme

Install the desired theme:
```
pawlette install-theme catppuccin-mocha
```
Apply theme

Activate the installed theme:
```
pawlette apply catppuccin-mocha
```

🎛 Theme Management

Basic Commands

Command	Description
`pawlette get-themes`	List installed themes
`pawlette set-theme <name>` or `pawlette apply <name>`	Apply theme
`pawlette current-theme`	Show active theme
`pawlette status`	Show status and changes
`pawlette restore`	Restore original appearance
`pawlette reset-theme <name>`	Reset theme to clean state

Installing, Updating and Removing Themes

Command	Description
`pawlette get-store-themes`	JSON with all available themes from the remote store
`pawlette get-themes-info`	JSON with installed themes information
`pawlette install-theme <name/url/path>`	Install theme
`pawlette update-theme <name>`	Update theme
`pawlette update-all-themes`	Update all themes
`pawlette uninstall-theme <name>`	Delete topic (local files and cache)

Creating Custom Themes

Detailed documentation on creating custom themes in Pawlette is available here.

Working with Versions (Git)

Command	Description
`pawlette history [theme] [--limit N]`	Commit history (shows 10 by default)
`pawlette user-changes [theme]`	User changes
`pawlette restore-commit <hash> [theme]`	Restore commit

🔄 Git-based Version Management

Pawlette automatically creates an internal Git repository to track changes:

Checking Status

pawlette status
# ➤ Current theme: catppuccin-mocha
# ⚠️  You have 3 uncommitted changes
# Modified files:
#   - kitty/kitty.conf
#   - waybar/config.json
#   - hypr/hyprland.conf

Viewing History

pawlette history
# 📜 History for theme: catppuccin-mocha
# 👤 a1b2c3d Personal font settings [USER]
# 🔧 e4f5g6h Waybar configuration update
# 🔧 h7i8j9k Initial theme application

# Limit number of commits
pawlette history --limit 5

Working with User Changes

# See which files are modified
pawlette user-changes
# 🔍 User changes for theme: catppuccin-mocha
# Found 2 modified files:
#   📝 kitty/kitty.conf
#   📝 waybar/style.css

# Restore specific commit
pawlette restore-commit a1b2c3d
# ✅ Successfully restored commit a1b2c3d for theme catppuccin-mocha

🛠️ Direct Git Repository Access

Pawlette stores all theme information in a Git repository located at ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git.

Connecting to the Git Repository

# Navigate to config directory
cd ~/.config

# Use Git with our repository
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# Now you can execute any Git commands
git status
git log
git diff

Useful Commands

View All Branches (Themes)

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git
git branch --all

# Output:
# * catppuccin-mocha
#   catppuccin-latte
#   catppuccin-mocha-v1.3.1-backup-20251024-165427
#   main

View Complete Diff of Your Changes

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# View all uncommitted changes in current theme
git diff

# View staged changes
git diff --cached

# View changes relative to last theme commit
git diff HEAD

# Save diff to file
git diff > my-changes.patch

View Detailed History

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# Detailed history with files
git log --stat

# History with full diff
git log -p

# History of specific file
git log -- kitty/kitty.conf

# Beautiful commit tree
git log --graph --oneline --all

Compare Branches (Themes)

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# Compare two themes
git diff catppuccin-mocha..catppuccin-latte

# See which files differ
git diff --name-only catppuccin-mocha..catppuccin-latte

🗂️ Theme Backup Management

When updating a theme, Pawlette automatically creates a backup of the old version.

Viewing Backups

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# List all backups
git branch --list '*-backup-*'

# Output:
#   catppuccin-mocha-v1.3.1-backup-20251024-165427
#   catppuccin-mocha-v1.2.0-backup-20251020-120000

Restoring Changes from Backup

Method 1: Switch to Backup

# Apply backup as a regular theme
pawlette apply catppuccin-mocha-v1.3.1-backup-20251024-165427

Method 2: Copy Changes via Cherry-pick

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# View commits in backup
git log catppuccin-mocha-v1.3.1-backup-20251024-165427

# Copy needed commit to current branch
git cherry-pick <commit-hash>

Method 3: Create Patch File

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# Export all changes from backup
git diff main..catppuccin-mocha-v1.3.1-backup-20251024-165427 > my-customizations.patch

# Apply patch to current theme
git apply my-customizations.patch

Deleting Old Backups

cd ~/.config
set -gx GIT_DIR ~/.local/state/pawlette/config_state.git

# Delete specific backup
git branch -D catppuccin-mocha-v1.2.0-backup-20251020-120000

# Delete all old backups (keep last 3)
# You can use a script or do it manually
git branch --list '*-backup-*' | sort -r | tail -n +4 | xargs -r git branch -D

🔗 Automatic Symlink Creation

When applying a theme, Pawlette automatically creates symbolic links:

Debugging Issues

For theme application issues, use pawlette restore
To reset a theme to its original state: pawlette reset-theme <name>
Check logs and status after each change
Use pawlette user-changes to view your modifications

Compatibility

The Pawlette system makes customizing meowrch simple and safe, allowing you to easily experiment with the system’s appearance without risk of losing important settings.