#Sxmo: Simple X Mobile - User Guide

Project Overview | Install Guide | User Guide | System Guide | Contributing | Images | Demo Video

Documentation (postmarketOS Stable) | Documentation (postmarketOS edge) | Documentation (Development Version)

#Interface

After login, you will be presented the SXMO interface as follows:

The core of the Sxmo UI is based on:

• a tiling window manager (sway if you are running on Wayland, and dwm if you are running Xorg)
• a menu program (bemenu on Wayland, dmenu for Xorg),
• a gesture deamon for the touchscreen (lisgd)
• a virtual keyboard (wvkbd on Wayland, svkbd on Xorg)

Sxmo runs on either Xorg or Wayland, with different but very similar software to make it possible. You may switch between the two environment via the Toggle WM option in the Power menu (provided you have both installed).

Regardless of the environment you use Sxmo consists in a large set of POSIX shell scripts that glue all these tools together. All these shell scripts comply to the pattern sxmo_*.sh and can be found in your /usr/bin/ directory. A lot of functionality is also in hooks sxmo_hook_*.sh and can be found in /usr/share/sxmo/default_hooks/ or ~/.config/sxmo/hooks.

#Status Bar

The status bar (from left to right) has icons for:

• The current and active workspace(s) (in the form of numbers). You can tap these to switch to them.
• The title of the active window (if any).
• GSM modem state icon (i.e., what state modemmanager reports, e.g., registered, initializing, etc.)
• GSM network type icon (e.g., 2g, 3g, etc.).
• GSM network stregnth icon.
• Wifi icon (including strength).
• Battery icon (including strength).
• Microphone icon (enabled or disabled).
• Sound icon (or headphone).
• An icon also represents what "state" the device is in: unlock (open circle), lock (circle with slash), screenoff (filled circle), or proximity lock (circle with dot)
• Date.

Relevant hooks:

• statusbar (override look and feel of the status bar)
• icons

#Hardware Button Bindings

The default button bindings are:

• Volume Raise:
  • 1 tap: Launch App Menu
  • 2 taps: Launch System Menu
  • 3 taps (or hold): Launch Window Management Menu
• Volume Lower:
  • 1 tap: Toggle virtual keyboard (wvkbd/svkbd)
  • 2 taps: Toggle the window manager layout state (between monocle/tile/bstack)
  • 3 taps: Kill client
• Power button:
  • 1 tap: Transition to next state
  • 2 taps: Transition to state after next state
  • 3 taps (or hold): Launch the terminal (foot/st)

Relevant hooks:

• inputhandler (override input handling behavior)

#Swipe gestures

In addition to the button bindings, a custom application called lisgd was developed to provide touchscreen swipe gestures within Sxmo. These gestures are sensitive to the edge of the screen where the gesture is initiated or where they end up, and some are sensitive to the length/distance of the swipe. Gestures in the main part of the screen, staying clear of the edges, are usually not interpreted and passed to the underlying application unmodified (assuming it has gesture support).

The SXMO gestures are visualized in the following schematic:

The default swipe gestures are:

• 1 finger Right-to-Left from Right edge: Focus next tag/workspace
• 1 finger Left-to-Right from Left edge: Focus previous tag/workspace
• 2 fingers Right-to-Left (anywhere): Move focused application to previous tag/workspace
• 2 fingers Left-to-Right (anywhere): Move focused application to next tag/workspace
• 1 finger Top-to-Bottom along the Left edge (held pressed): Volume down
• 1 finger Bottom-to-Top from the Top edge: Show the application menu
• 2 finger Bottom-to-Top from the Top edge: Show the system menu
• 1 finger Top-to-Bottom onto the Top edge: Close the active menu
• 1 finger Bottom-to-Top from the Bottom edge: Show virtual keyboard
• 1 finger Top-to-Bottom onto the Bottom edge: Hide virtual keyboard
• 2 finger Top-to-Bottom onto the Bottom edge: Close the current active window
• 3 finger Top-to-Bottom onto the Bottom edge: Kill the current active window
• 1 finger from Bottom-Right corner, swiping diagonally: Rotate the screen
• 1 finger from Bottom-Left corner, swiping diagonally: Lock the device
• 1 finger Left-to-Right along the top edge (held pressed): Increase screen brightness
• 1 finger Right-to-Left along the top edge (held pressed): Decrease screen brightness

There are various default gestures that translate to keypresses for the underlying application, this facilitates navigation in a variety of applications, including terminal-based applications, without needing the virtual keyboard:

• 1 finger Right-to-Left onto the Left edge: Send Left arrow
• 1 finger Left-to-Right onto the Right edge: Send Right arrow
• 1 finger Top-to-Bottom along the Right edge (held pressed): Send Key down (scroll down)
• 1 finger Bottom-to-Top along the Right edge (held pressed): Send Key up (scroll up)
• 1 finger Right-to-Left along the Bottom edge: Send Backspace
• 1 finger Left-to-Right along the Bottom edge: Send Return

Relevant hooks:

• lisgdstart

#The Menu System

Menus are a central feature of Sxmo and are navigable through using the Pinephone's 3 hardware buttons or by swiping down from the top of the screen.

The default menu bindings for the Pinephone buttons are:

• Volume Raise: Previous item
• Volume Lower: Next item
• Power: Select item

You can also simply use the touchscreen to tap your selection if you'd like as well.

The menus are essentially scripts around bemenu or a custom patched version of dmenu.

Tip: You can close any open menu with a gesture, swipe straight up (vertically) onto the top edge of the screen and all the open menu will close.

Relevant hooks:

• apps (what shows up on Apps submenu)
• contextmenu (what shows up on all the menus and submenus)
• icons (icons)
• scripts (what shows up in scripts menu)

#States

Sxmo recognizes five basic states:

• Unlocked (unlock): Screen is on; touchscreen is enabled.
• Locked (lock): Screen is on; touchscreen is disabled.
• Screenoff (screenoff): Screen is off; touchscreen is disabled. There is a short purple blink while in this state.
• Proximity Lock (proximitylock/unlock): When close to your face, the screen will be off and touchscreen disabled; when far from your face, screen will be on and touchscreen enabled. This is used during phone calls, for instance.
• Suspend or Crust: This is the kernel CRUST.

The usual workflow is this. If the phone is in the "unlock" state and you wish to suspend it, click the power button once. This will transition to the "screenoff" state which will automatically move to the "suspend" state unless something is blocking it. If the phone is in the "suspend" state and you wish to use it, click the power button once (to move to "lock" state) and then once more to move to "unlock" state.

Sxmo also handles automatic transitions from some states to others.

• It will automatically transition rom unlock -> screenoff after a certain amount of time (120s).
• It will automatically transition from lock -> screenoff after a certain amount of time (8s).
• It will automatically transition from screenoff -> suspend after a certain amount of time unless something is blocking it (2s).

You can set up suspend blockers in the wakelocks hook.

Relevant hooks:

• postwake (what to do after waking up from suspend state)
• lock (what to do when transitioning into lock state)
• screenoff (what to do when transitioning into screenoff state)
• unlock (what to do when transitioning into unlock state)
• wakelocks (set what block suspend)

#Cron

Sxmo ensures that cron jobs run and will actively wake the phone from sleep temporarily to this end. The cron daemon is installed but not enabled in postmarketOS. Cron has to be started manually (rc-service crond start) and set to start on boot (rc-update add crond default). We use a little program called mnc to wake the phone up before the next planned cron job. We also wrap some sxmo logic in a dedicated script called sxmo_rtcwake.sh which:

• manages the screenlock state while doing the task
• puts the phone back to crust when done

*/15 * * * * sxmo_rtcwake.sh sleep 10

This example will wake the phone up for 10 seconds every 15 minutes. You may want to redirect the standard error output to the main log as shown in the example above.

If you omit sxmo_rtcwake.sh for a job, the system will not wake up from crust. Note that in such cases, you might want to use sxmo_wm.sh execwait instead, e.g.:

*/15 * * * * sxmo_wm.sh execwait sleep 20

This will make sure that the SXMO environmental variables are sent to your script.

Relevant hooks:

• mnc (change the program that calculates wakeup)

#Calls and Texting

Calling and texting is fully functional and should work out-of-the-box. Make sure you have the modem killswitch in the enabled position and wait a little bit after booting before trying modem functionality to allow the modem to connect.

The scripting behind the scenes works via ModemManager using the mmcli command line tool.

Unlocking SIM

As long as your SIM is locked, a lock icon should appear in the status bar. SXMO automatically asks for your SIM's PIN code using a menu (since sxmo 1.4.1).

Alternatively, you can do so from the command-line as follows:

mmcli -i 0 --pin 1234

You could put this in your unlock sim hook (~/.config/sxmo/hooks/sxmo_hook_modem.sh), but there is of course a significant security risk involved if your device gets compromised!

Relevant hooks:

• modem

Calling

To place a new call, you can use the Dialer entry in the global system menu. You will be prompted for a number to dial. Once the call connects, a menu will automatically be launched which let's you:

• Manage audio routing
• Send DTMF (dial) tones
• Hang up the call

A proximity lock is automatically enabled that will lock and turn off your screen during a call if you have the phone close to your ear.

Relevant hooks:

• call_audio

Sending Texts

To compose a new text message, from the Texts entry you will see a Send a Text entry which first prompt you for a number. After entering the destination number you will by default be dropped into a vim-like editor (vis) to compose your message. Once your message is as you'd like it, exit the editor using ZZ/:wq!. You will now be taken to a new menu to confirm your message from which you can edit/send/add recipients/add attachments/cancel the message.

Relevant hooks:

• sendsms (what to do when sending sms/mms)

Reading texts

To view existing text message threads you can use the Texts entry in the global system menu. This menu will let you tail follow a logfile for your conversation with each number. When a new text is sent or received; the tail will automatically be updated with the new text contents.

While displaying the conversation you can pop out a contextual menu with power up button to reply by text or to start a call with the number.

You can also open a "conversation" window with a gesture from the botton edge. It will open your editor and the virtual keyboard to type your sms. Save and close the file to send the sms. A new editor will be openned again to type a new message.

Relevant hooks:

• tailtextlog (controls look and feel of view of message text, e.g., colors, etc.)

Monitoring for Incoming Calls/Texts

A vital feature of a working phone is being able to receive new texts and pickup calls. This functionality is made possible through a script that monitors the modem activities and vibrates the phone, plays a notification or ringing sound, and blinks the green LED when there is an incoming text/call.

While a call is incoming:

• The phone will ring and vibrate (unless you disabled these in the Audio menu).
• The green LED will trigger.
• A menu will appear to allow you to pickup the call. You can also discard the call or ignore the call (mute the ring). If you missed the menu, you can also open the global system menu menu and you'll see a menu entry to pickup the call; of course this is time-sensitive and this menu entry will only be visible while the other party's line is ringing
• Relevant hooks:
  • call_audio (adjust volume level)
  • discard (if you hangup without answering)
  • hangup (if you hangup)
  • missed_call (if you miss the call)
  • mute_ring (if you click ignore to ignore the call, i.e., mute the ringing)
  • pickup (if you pickup)
  • ring (what to do when ringing)

When a new text message comes in:

• The phone will play a notification sound and vibrate(unless you disabled these in the Audio menu).
• The green LED will trigger.
• A popup notification will appear.
• Relevant hooks:
  • sms (what to do when an sms/mms is received)

Configuring GSM

To have a working gsm connection you can use the dedicated Networks submenu entry "Add a GSM Network". You then must type the APN your provider gave you. You can then toggle this GSM entry as other network manager ones.

Configuring MMS

MMS messaging should work just like regular text messaging. When you Send a Text there will be the option to add multiple recipients or attachments. To make mms work, sxmo relies on mmsd-tng. The main configuration will be located in ~/.mms/modemmanager/mms. To make things easier in sxmo, we have a dedicated menu entry in Configuration called Config MMS. This menu will create a default config and you then can edit fields one by one. The script should take care of restarting mmsd when closed.

Note that you likely will not have to configure mmsd-tng, if your settings are already in the database. Consider contributing your own if it is not.

Note that your carrier's nameserver must be present in /etc/resolv.conf in order to send/receive mms. This should be automatic. However, sometimes NetworkManager will place the wifi's nameservers above the carrier's nameservers, and since /etc/resolv.conf can only use the first three entries, the carrier's nameservers will not be used. To fix this, you can set dns=none in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf and use a static /etc/resolv.conf instead.

#Contacts System

The Sxmo contacts system based on a plain TSV file that can be placed at $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxmo/contacts.tsv. This TSV file is expected to have two tab separated columns: phonenumber, and contactname. Upon receiving a call if you have a contact stored associated with the incoming number, the contact name will appear instead of the number. Also contact names will appear in the Texts and Dialer menus if they are present in the contacts TSV file. If no contacts.tsv is present, or the number is missing from this file; the contact in menus will show up as ???. An contacts.tsv example might look like:

+122345628	John Smith
+128371642	Jeff Foo
+31612345678	Jan Janssen

#Included Scripts and Applications

In App and Scripts menu there are some included scripts. See the sxmo_hook_apps.sh and sxmo_hook_scripts.sh for the full list. This is a selection:

Some Included Scripts:

• Web Search: Search duckduckgo with the query provided by the user (bangs work too)
• Files: A filebrowser that can handle opening audio and text files
• Timer: A simple countdown timer script that vibrates the phones upon completion
• Youtube: Search youtube by keyword in dmenu and then view in mpv (script based on idiotbox)
• Youtube (audio): Search youtube by keyword in dmenu and then listen in mpv (script based on idiotbox)
• Weather: United States weather forecast (by zipcode) dmenu script
• RSS: Aggregates RSS feeds and let's you view by timespan dmenu script (based on sfeed)

Some Supported Applications:

The application menu supports a wide variety of applications, and will only show them if installed. For some of these applications special context menus are availables. Some of the notable examples are (not exhaustive):

• St: The suckless terminal
• Foot: The minimalistic wayland terminal
• Firefox: The infamous FOSS browser often symbolized by a fox
• Surf: The suckless minimalistic browser based on Webkit
• Netsurf: An alternative minimalistic browser that renders really fast
• Lagrange: A gemini browser
• Sacc: A great minimalistic gopher browser; launches by default to a good phlog aggregator (optional)
• Vim/Neovim/Vis: A modal terminal-based text editor
• Feh/Sxiv: Image viewers for X
• Mpv: Video player
• Nano: A simple text-based text editor
• Mutt/Neomutt: A text-based mail client
• W3m: A text-based browser with vim-like keybindings
• Weechat: A text-based IRC client and much more
• Ncmpcpp: A text-based music client for MPD
• Cmus: Another terminal-based music player
• Aerc: A simple terminal-based mail client
• Xcalc: A nice (and fast) calculator app

#Wifi

There is a menu entry in the Networks Menu to add an APN and connect to wifi. This is essentially this is just a wrapper to launch nmtui. If your phone has a wifi killswitch (like the Pinephone or Librem 5), make sure it is in the enabled position.

#Mobile data

Mobile data can be simarly added via the Networks Menu. It will ask for an APN, you may also consult the postmarketOS pinephone documentation for that aspect.

#Audio Routing

You can use the Audio Menu to toggle which audio output you want to send sound to.

Sxmo uses pipewire and pulseaudio nowadays. You can access an Audio menu and a Bluetooth menu from the main menu. We use callaudiod to route audio during a phone call.

Currently, bluetooth audio during phone calls does not work. Please see:

• https://gitlab.com/mobian1/issues/-/issues/345
• https://gitlab.com/mobian1/callaudiod/-/issues/12

#Updating and Changelog

Sxmo's packages are currently distributed through packages in pmOS so when new package versions are periodically pushed; your install can be

To update run:

apk update
apk upgrade -aiv

There is also a menu entry within the Config Menu to update as well which runs the same commands as above.

For details on what changed between package versions or image releases refer to the changelog.

#Hooks

If a user-defined hook file does not exist on activity, sxmo will run the corresponding project defined default hook from /usr/share/sxmo/default_hooks/. For example, if you pickup a call and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxmo/hooks/sxmo_hook_pickup.sh does not exist, /usr/share/sxmo/default_hooks/sxmo_hook_pickup.sh will be run.

Note also that some hooks will be in a subdirectory with a devicename. For instance, in /usr/share/sxmo/default_hooks/ there are one_button_ereader and three_button_touchscreen and various names linked to them. (We determine the name of your device by looking at /sys/firmware/devicetree/base/compatible.) This allows you to have unique hooks depending on the kind of device that you are running.

Search above for 'Relevant Hooks' in each section.

#Logging

Sxmo places its information in ~/.local/state/sxmo.log. You might find the other logfiles in that directory of use as well (e.g. ~/.local/state/superd/logs/*)

#Environment Variables

The following environment variables can be set in ~/.config/sxmo/profile:

• $TERMCMD: Terminal to launch on double-clicking power button and used in scripts. Defaults to foot (wayland) or st (Xorg).
• $BROWSER: Browser to launch on triple-clicking/holding power-button and used in scripts. Defaults to surf.
• $KEYBOARD: Keyboard to launch on single-clicking power button and used in scripts. Defaults to svkbd or wvkbd.
• $KEYBOARD_ARGS: Arguments to pass to $KEYBOARD, e.g., -o | clickclack -f /usr/share/sxmo/keytap.wav
• $EDITOR: Editor to use to handle files. Defaults to vis
• $DEFAULT_COUNTRY: String to indicate the default country sxmo should fallback to when the phone numbers are not country code prefixed. Should be set to a country code (iso-3166?) such as FR for France, DE for Germany, US for the Unites States.
• $SXMO_DEVICE_NAME: auto-detected
• $SXMO_CACHEDIR: default ~/.cache/sxmo
• $SXMO_BLOCKDIR: default ~/.local/share/sxmo/block
• $SXMO_BLOCKFILE: default ~/.config/sxmo/block.tsv
• $SXMO_CONTACTFILE: default ~/.config/sxmo/contacts.tsv
• $SXMO_LOGDIR: default ~/.local/share/sxmo/modem
• $SXMO_NOTIFDIR: default ~/.local/share/sxmo/notifications
• $SXMO_RINGTONE: sound to play when incoming call
• $SXMO_TEXTSOUND: sound to play when new message
• $SXMO_RINGTIME: number of times to play ring tone
• $SXMO_DEFAULT_DRAFT: default message when composing a message
• $SXMO_BG_IMG: background image

The best place to set these default environment variables is in your ~/.profile or in ~/.config/sxmo/profile if they are sxmo specific.

Other environmental variables that are more device specific can be found in README.md file in deviceprofiles/ in the source. For information on adding a new device, see below.

#Update migrations

While developing Sxmo, we will regularly update certain configuration files such as the xinit/sway template, the hooks or whatever. These files are typically a mixture of changes by us and customizations by the user. This mixture gives the user maximum flexibility to adapt Sxmo to their liking. However, when we update such files, the challenge is to ensure that user modifications can be easily merged back in again. Moreover, we must ensure the system is never in a broken state because of outdated configurations and version mismatches.

Whenever your configuration files are out-of-date when starting Sxmo, they will be moved aside (i.e. renamed with .needs-revision extension) and the default configuration will take its place. A red notification will pop up telling you have configuration files that need to be migrated. This migration is done by running a script named sxmo_migrate.sh. This script can simply be launched from the configuration menu or via ssh (recommended). It first shows the differences between your configuration and the new default, and allows you to edit and apply your configuration accordingly. sxmo_migrate.sh use $DIFFTOOL to help you merge your changes. By default $DIFFTOOL is set to vimdiff.

If you have any pending migrations, always make sure to complete the migration process before making any new changes to your configuration. It is also recommended to keep your configuration under version control (e.g. git).

Techical details:

Sxmo (since 1.8.1) uses explicitly versioned configuration files, meaning that they each carry a simple version hash unique to the file. This version hash is expressed in a comment in the file itself, such as:

# configversion: d8aaf01c9489793bda3686ef23b2b192

You should only update this version hash when sxmo_migrate.sh prompts you to do so by showing a diff of a newer configversion hash.

If you want to see what files are disabled and need migration, run sxmo_migrate.sh state, or run sxmo_migrate.sh sync state if you just performed an upgrade and haven't restarted yet. If you want to revert all your configuration files to the default, then you can run sxmo_migrate.sh reset. This is usually a last resort if you end up with a broken system and can be considered a kind of factory reset, all your configuration files will moved out of the way and flagged for migration then.

The process that checks the versions of your configuration files is sxmo_migrate.sh sync, it runs automatically when Sxmo starts.

#Resolving system configs on system upgrade and make

Apk will install new configs as .apk-new on upgrades if you have modified the original config in /etc. Moreover, when hacking on Sxmo, you will often run make installand this may "modify" a config in /etc from apk's perspective. You can merge apk's config changes by running doas update-conf. You can also run apk audit to list all the files that have changed from what apk originally installed.

#User Scripts

User scripts are custom scripts the user can run via the Scripts Menu. To add your own custom userscript, you have two options: edit the userscripts file or place a shell script in the userscripts directory.

• Option 1. Edit $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxmo/userscripts and write your entries in it, following the appmenu format <name> ^ <should-return-to-menu> ^ <script-path-or-command> one entry per line. Example:  Weather ^ 0 ^ sxmo_terminal.sh -f "monospace:size=5" sh -c "curl http://wttr.in/ | less -SR"
• Option 2. Create the $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sxmo/userscripts directory and place your .sh scripts in the userscripts directory. Note, Userscripts should be set to be executable. You can set a title for the script by adding a comment line of the following ofrmat near the top of the file:

# title="$icon_glb My World"

For examples of scripts Sxmo users have made for their mobile devices, see:

• ~anjan/sxmo-userscripts.

#Further Customization

Much of Sxmo's core-functionality in regards to menus are built out via plain shell scripts. So further cutomization should be simple. See sxmo-util's scripts directory to get a better sense of how things are put together. You can edit the scripts on your system for temporary fixes and please consider contributing your changes if you believe your modifications may be useful to other users.

#Files

The sxmo_files.sh script (accessible via sxmo_appmenu.sh) follows the XDG MIME Applications standard. We have our own custom xdg-open implementation called sxmo_open.sh that will parse the mimeapps.list files and open the default application as set by the user. To change a default application review the format of the mimeapps.list and edit ~/.config/mimeapps.list.

#Tinydm

We use tinydm as login manager. The tinydm goal is to simply automatically login a target user on boot. You can configure the UID to login as in /etc/conf.d/tinydm. (make sure to adapt this if you create a custom user!)

#Applications

SXMO just provides you with a simple graphical environment on top of your favourite distribution, which by default is postmarketOS for SXMO. PostmarketOS is in turn based on Alpine Linux. You can install any packages your distribution provides from the command line as follows:

$ apk update
$ apk add name-of-the-package

To see a categorized list of applications that work well with Sxmo and install the apps via a gui, install and use the appstore.sh userscript.

The built-in application menu of sxmo is only aware of a subset of applications, and will only show them when installed, feel free to add more tools to the menus and submit a patch.

#Devices

This section describes how to add a new device to SXMO. There are three basic steps:

• Determine your SXMO_DEVICE_NAME
• Add a sxmo_deviceprofile_SXMO_DEVICE_NAME.sh file to scripts/deviceprofiles/ in the source tree.
• Add (or symlink to an existing) SXMO_DEVICE_NAME folder in configs/default_hooks/ in the source tree.

#Determining the SXMO_DEVICE_NAME

The SXMO_DEVICE_NAME is determined by the following code in sxmo_init.sh

tr -c '\0[:alnum:].,-' '_' < /proc/device-tree/compatible | tr '\0' '\n' | head -n1

#Add deviceprofile file

In the source tree navigate to scripts/deviceprofiles/ and make a file called sxmo_deviceprofile_SXMO_DEVICE_NAME.sh. This file should contain various shell variables that define things unique to your device, e.g., input ids, etc. There is a README.md in the same directory that will help.

#Add a device folder

In addition to the deviceprofile file, which defines things like touch input ids, etc., you will also want to set a locking workflow for the device. We have three basic defaults to which all the devices symlink. Navigate to configs/default_hooks/ in the source tree. You will see there are three folders and several symlinks. These folders contain various hooks that handle locking mechanisms. There are at present three basic folders: three_button_touchscreen, one_button_e_reader, and desktop. You can also create your own, but usually you'll just want to symlink to one of these.