wayscriber
A ZoomIt-like real-time screen annotation tool for Linux/Wayland, written in Rust, offering drawing, zoom, and screenshot capture.
What is wayscriber?
Wayscriber is a real-time screen annotation tool for Linux/Wayland that allows users to draw, annotate, zoom, and capture screenshots directly over any application. It solves the need for a lightweight, persistent overlay for presentations, tutorials, and collaborative work without disrupting the underlying workflow.
Linux users on Wayland compositors (e.g., Hyprland, Sway, KDE Plasma) who need professional presentation tools, educators, developers giving demos, and anyone requiring live screen annotation.
Developers choose Wayscriber for its native Wayland performance, ZoomIt-like controls, session persistence, and high customizability—all built in Rust for efficiency and reliability.
Overview
Live overlay for drawing, annotating with zoom, hiding text, and capturing screenshots on Linux. Can be used as whiteboard or blackboard. Highly customisable. Written in Rust.
Use Cases
Best For
- Giving live presentations with on-screen annotations and zoom
- Creating tutorial videos with step-by-step callouts and highlights
- Collaborative debugging or design reviews with real-time drawing
- Taking annotated screenshots for documentation or bug reports
- Using as a digital whiteboard or blackboard during meetings
- Quickly highlighting UI elements during software demos
Not Ideal For
- Users on X11-based Linux systems or other operating systems like Windows or macOS
- Projects requiring built-in video recording or direct export of annotations to images (as this feature is planned but not yet implemented)
- Environments where minimal setup is preferred, as daemon mode requires systemd or compositor configuration
- Teams using GNOME exclusively, as support is partial with fallback to windowed overlays
Pros & Cons
Pros
Uses layer-shell for optimal performance on Wayland compositors like Hyprland and Sway, providing a seamless, non-intrusive overlay without disrupting underlying applications.
Offers opt-in restoration of canvas and tool states across restarts via CLI flags or tray menu, ideal for ongoing presentations or tutorials where context needs to be saved.
Includes ZoomIt-style zoom controls, multi-line text, shapes, arrows with auto-numbering, and presenter tools like click highlights and screen freeze, covering a wide range of annotation needs.
Features floating toolbars, radial menus, a command palette, and extensive keyboard shortcuts configurable via TOML or GUI configurator, allowing users to tailor workflows precisely.
Cons
Exclusively supports Linux/Wayland with no X11 compatibility, and GNOME support is partial relying on portal fallbacks, limiting usability on mixed or legacy systems.
As noted in the roadmap, saving annotations directly to images is not yet implemented, forcing users to rely on separate capture tools for complete annotation workflows.
Achieving the preferred daemon mode involves systemd service configuration or compositor autostart, which can be non-trivial for users unfamiliar with Linux system management.
Open Source Alternative To
wayscriber is an open-source alternative to the following products:
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
omarchistA GUI app for Omarchy Linux.
hyprmarkerLive overlay for drawing, annotating with zoom, hiding text, and capturing screenshots on Linux. Can be used as whiteboard or blackboard. Highly customisable. Written in Rust.
aetherAether, native Omarchy theming support. Works standalone for other distros.
waybar-themesA collection of Waybar themes inspired by Omarchy, designed to be compatible with various Linux distributions.
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