Skip to content

Calaweh/bubble-nav

Repository files navigation

bubble-nav

"The current File Explorer navigation is not intuitive, convenient for me. So I made this coooooooooooooool, funny(?) radial canvas overlay with a hold-to-navigate gesture wheel — tether, snap, and flow through directories like a spatial command center!!! (and I lazy to find alternative solution, maybe better existing, but just for fun haha)"

Screenshots

Radial canvas overlay for Windows file explorer — navigate directories and launch tools via hold-to-drag gestures on a spatial bubble wheel. Uses Tauri for the native overlay window and IPC, with a pure TypeScript canvas renderer.

Features

  • Spatial navigation — drag outward from center to reveal satellites; slide over a folder to enter it, over a file to see tools, over ↩ to go up. The "just-exited" folder stays pinned in yellow at its screen position so you can instantly go back.
  • Hold-to-drag — press and hold the center bubble, drag across targets, release on empty space to see folder tools. Discrete click shortcuts also work.
  • Bi-arc / full-circle layout — browsing uses a parent-oriented bi-arc; tool menus use perfect full-circle spacing.
  • Autostart — registers on Windows startup; Alt+Space toggles the overlay.
  • Editor launcher — open files/folders in VS Code, Antigravity IDE, or Visual Studio (configured via .env).
  • WSL-aware — opens WSL instances and resolves \\wsl.localhost\ paths.

Setup

  1. Copy .env.example.env and fill in your editor paths and start directory.
  2. npm install
  3. cargo tauri dev (requires Rust + GTK dev libs on Linux build host, or native Windows toolchain)

Required .env values

Variable Description
WSL_DISTRO WSL distro name (e.g. Ubuntu)
VSCODE_BIN Path to VS Code binary (WSL path for WSL, Windows path for Windows)
ANTIGRAVITY_PATH Absolute Windows path to Antigravity IDE (D:\...)
VISUALSTUDIO_PATH Absolute Windows path to devenv.exe
OPENCODE_BIN WSL path to opencode binary
VITE_START_PATH Initial directory shown on launch

Commands

Key / Gesture Action
Hold center + drag Navigate / preview tools
Release on empty space Show folder tools
Click satellite Direct navigation / action
Alt+Space Toggle overlay

Architecture

src/          — TypeScript canvas app (main, layout, renderer, utils, types, config)
src-tauri/    — Rust backend (global shortcut, WSL resolution, editor launcher, IPC)

Built with Tauri v2.

About

The current File Explorer navigation is not intuitive, convenient for me. So I made this coooooooooooooool, funny(?) radial canvas overlay with a hold-to-navigate gesture wheel — tether, snap, and flow through directories like a spatial command center!!! (and I lazy to find alternative solution, maybe better existing, but just for fun haha)

Resources

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases

No releases published

Packages

 
 
 

Contributors

Languages