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Installing Kando

You can either download a pre-built package or compile Kando yourself. Manual compilation is only required if you want to test the latest development version of Kando or if you want to contribute to the project.

Downloading Kando for Windows

Tip

There is a YouTube video to get you started: ▶️ How to install Kando on Windows.

Just head over to the releases page and download either the installer (the Kando-*.Setup.exe file) or the standalone version (the Kando-win32-x64-*.zip file).

If you chose the standalone version, you can just extract the archive and run the kando executable. If you chose the installer, you will find Kando in your start menu after the installation (the installation process is very minimal and does not require any user interaction).

As the executables are not signed, Windows will show a warning when you try to run them. Just click on "More info" and then on "Run anyway".

Continue reading the 📝 Usage Guide to learn how to interact with Kando!

Downloading Kando for macOS

Tip

There is a YouTube video to get you started: ▶️ How to install Kando on macOS.

Kando is available as a Homebrew Cask. You can install it by running:

brew install kando

Otherwise, just head over to the releases page and download either the installer (Kando-*-arm64.dmg if you are on Apple Silicon, or Kando-*-x64.dmg if you are on Intel hardware) or the standalone version (Kando-darwin-arm64-*.zip on Apple Silicon, or Kando-darwin-x64-*.zip for Intel hardware).

If you chose the standalone version, you can just extract the archive and run the contained app. If you chose the installer, you will find Kando in your launchpad after the installation.

Important

After downloading and installing, make sure to read the platform-spedific notes below!

Continue reading the 📝 Usage Guide to learn how to interact with Kando!

Downloading Kando for Linux

There are many ways to install Kando on Linux. First you should check if there is an up-to-date package in your distribution's package manager.

Kando is quite new and is not yet available in many package managers. Here are some packages that we are aware of:

Alternatively, you can download a pre-built package from GitHub. Just head over to the releases page and download a standalone zip archive (Kando-linux-x64-*.zip), a Debian package (Kando_*_amd64.deb), an RPM package (Kando-*.x86_64.rpm), or a AppImage (Kando-*-x86_64.AppImage).

The app image can be run directly. If you chose the standalone version, just extract the archive and run the kando executable. If you chose the Debian or RPM package, you can install it with sudo dpkg -i Kando_*_amd64.deb or sudo rpm -i Kando-*.x86_64.rpm (or yum or dnf depending on your distro). Thereafter, you can run Kando from your main menu.

Important

After downloading and installing, make sure to read the platform-spedific notes below!

Continue reading the 📝 Usage Guide to learn how to interact with Kando!

⚙️ Building Kando Yourself

If you want to test the latest development version of Kando, you will have to install node and npm. You will also need CMake for building the native backends. Additionally, you will need a C++ toolchain.

Windows Dependencies

To get node and npm on Windows, you can follow the official instructions. To get the Microsoft MSVC toolchain, you can install either Visual Studio or run this:

npm install -g windows-build-tools
macOS Dependencies

On macOS, you will need the Xcode Commandline Tools and CMake. The latter can easily be installed with Homebrew:

brew install cmake

To get node and npm, you can use nvm.

Linux Dependencies

On Linux, gcc should already be installed. However, some additional packages may be required for the native backend modules. On Debian-based distributions you can install them with:

sudo apt install nodejs cmake libx11-dev libxtst-dev libwayland-dev libxkbcommon-dev

On Arch-based distributions you can install them with:

sudo pacman -S nodejs npm cmake libx11 libxtst wayland libxkbcommon

On RPM-based distributions you can install them with:

sudo dnf install nodejs cmake libX11-devel libXtst-devel wayland-devel libxkbcommon-devel

🚀 Running Kando from Source

Once these dependencies are installed, navigate to a directory where you want the sources of Kando and clone the repository:

cd "path/to/your/directory"
git clone https://github.com/kando-menu/kando.git
cd kando

Then, install all node dependencies and start the application:

npm install
npm start

Once this is running, you can press Ctrl+Space to open the test window.

Tip

Make sure to also read the platform-spedific notes below!

If started this way, Kando will run in development mode. This means that any changes to the source code (at least to the renderer process) will be applied immediately. So you usually don't have to restart the application after changing the code. npm install is only required when the dependencies change.

📦 Creating a Release Executable

To create an executable compiled in release mode, run this:

npm install
npm run package

This will create a directory in the out/ directory containing the kando executable.

🚢 Creating a Distributable Package

To create a distributable archive, just run this:

npm install
npm run make

This will create several packages in the out/ directory.

  • On Windows, it will create a Squirrel installer and a portable zip archive.
  • On Linux, it will create Debian, an RPM and a portable zip archive.
  • On macOS, it will create a DMG file and a portable zip archive. If the environment variables KANDO_OSX_SIGN and KANDO_OSX_NOTARIZE are set to true, the build process will try to sign and notarize the application.

Platform-Specific Notes

macOS

  • You will have to grant Kando Accessibility and Screen Recording permissions in the system settings. Accessibility permissions are required to simulate key presses and move the mouse cursor. Screen Recording permissions are required to get the name of the currently focused window.
  • If you run Kando from source, you will need to grant the permissions to the terminal you are using to start Kando.

Linux

  • On GNOME / Wayland you will also need to install the 🐚 Kando Integration Extension.
  • On KDE / Wayland and Hyprland you cannot directly bind global shortcuts. Instead, you specify a shortcut ID in the editor and bind a key combination in the desktop environment settings. On KDE you find your given shortcut ID under the KWin section in the global shortcuts settings. On Hyprland you can bind the shortcut using bind = CTRL, Space, global, kando:<trigger-id> for instance.
  • Per default, Kando runs under XWayland on Wayland compositors. If you want to run it natively, you can set the environment variable ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=wayland before starting Kando. This is not yet fully tested but should work on most distributions.
  • On Hyprland, you will need some window rules for Kando: 
    windowrule = noblur, kando
windowrule = opaque, kando
windowrule = size 100% 100%, kando
windowrule = noborder, kando
windowrule = noanim, kando
windowrule = float, kando
windowrule = pin, kando
  • On Dusk, you will need some window rules for Kando: 
      static const Rule clientrules[] = {
  { .class = "kando", .flags = FullScreen }, //kando should be on top of DOCK clientrule
  { .wintype = WTYPE "DESKTOP", .flags = Unmanaged|Lower },
  { .wintype = WTYPE "DOCK", .flags = Unmanaged|Raise },
  };
  • On some distributions, you may encounter the error The SUID sandbox helper binary was found, but is not configured correctly. Rather than run without sandboxing I'm aborting now. This is related to this issue and can be fixed by running these commands: 
    sudo chmod 4755 node_modules/electron/dist/chrome-sandbox
sudo chown root node_modules/electron/dist/chrome-sandbox

How to run Kando from the Command Line

If you installed Kando with an installer, you can just run it from the start menu. However, sometimes it is useful to run Kando from the command line in order to see the output of the application. Depending on your platform, the kando executable will be located in different directories:

  • Windows: %localappdata%\Kando\app-<version number>\Kando.exe
  • macOS: /Applications/Kando.app/Contents/MacOS/Kando
  • Linux: /usr/bin/kando or /usr/local/bin/kando

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