Your niri config.kdl, translated for macOS

How Ribbon's settings are organised

niri keeps everything in one KDL file that reloads when you save it. Ribbon keeps everything in a settings window, and changes apply as soon as you flip a switch. The pages you'll use are:

• Configuration: gaps, animation, centring, width presets, mouse and trackpad, focus border, window rules.
• Shortcuts: every action, rebindable, with several chords allowed per action. Covered in niri keybindings on Mac.
• Mac Setup: checks the macOS settings that would get in the way.

If you haven't installed Ribbon yet, the setup guide covers the permission and trackpad settings first.

layout {}

gaps

layout {
    gaps 16
}

Ribbon: Gap between windows, in pixels. The default is 8. The same gap is used between windows and at the screen edges, so gaps 16 becomes 16 in Ribbon.

center-focused-column and always-center-single-column

layout {
    center-focused-column "on-overflow"
    always-center-single-column
}

Ribbon: Centre the focused column, with three choices that match niri's word for word: Never, On overflow and Always. niri defaults to "never"; Ribbon defaults to On overflow, so set it to Never if you want niri's stock behaviour.

There's no separate switch for always-center-single-column. You can centre any column on demand with ⌃⌥C, which is niri's Mod+C.

preset-column-widths

layout {
    preset-column-widths {
        proportion 0.33333
        proportion 0.5
        proportion 0.66667
    }
}

Ribbon: Column width presets, edited as percentages. The defaults are 25, 33, 50, 66, 75 and 100%. Delete the ones you don't use to get niri's three-step cycle. ⌃⌥R cycles forward like Mod+R. A Width presets wrap around toggle decides whether the cycle loops back to the first preset. Fixed pixel widths (fixed 1200) have no equivalent; presets are proportions only.

preset-window-heights has no twin. In a stack you change heights step by step with ⌃⌥⇧= and ⌃⌥⇧-, and ⌃⌥0 makes them equal again.

default-column-width and default-column-display

layout {
    default-column-width { proportion 0.5; }
    default-column-display "tabbed"
}

Ribbon has no setting for the width a new column opens at, and columns don't open tabbed by default. Press ⌃⌥R after a window opens to pick a width, and ⌃⌥⇧T to turn a column into tabs.

focus-ring and border

layout {
    focus-ring {
        width 4
        active-color "#7fc8ff"
        inactive-color "#505050"
    }
}

Ribbon: Focus border. Turn it on or off, set the width, and pick a colour, with a separate colour for Dark Mode. There are no gradients and no inactive colour. The nearest thing to an inactive colour is Dim inactive windows, which darkens every unfocused window by 0 to 100%.

niri's border (drawn around every window, shrinking it to make room) has no equivalent. Ribbon only marks the focused window.

struts and shadow

layout {
    struts {
        left 64
        right 64
    }
}

Neither struts nor shadow has a direct twin. Ribbon's gap applies evenly at every edge, and there's no setting to keep a slice of the neighbouring window peeking in. macOS draws its own window shadows, and window managers can't change them through the Accessibility API.

input {}

input {
    focus-follows-mouse max-scroll-amount="0%"
    warp-mouse-to-focus
    touchpad {
        tap
        natural-scroll
    }
}

• focus-follows-mouse → Focus follows mouse (off by default). There's no max-scroll-amount limit.
• warp-mouse-to-focus → Mouse follows focus (off by default).
• touchpad { tap; natural-scroll; ... } → macOS System Settings → Trackpad. Ribbon doesn't override it.
• keyboard { xkb { ... } } → macOS System Settings → Keyboard. Ribbon's shortcut recorder works with any layout.

niri scrolls the view with a three-finger swipe out of the box. Ribbon does too, and its options sit under Swipe fingers (Off, 3 or 4, default 3), with Natural direction, Continuous swipe (let the strip scroll past the last window) and Sensitivity. For the swipe to reach Ribbon, macOS's "Swipe between full-screen applications" must not be on three fingers. The setup guide shows where to change it.

niri's Mod+WheelScrollRight/Left becomes Ribbon's Scroll-wheel modifier: hold ⌥ (or ⌘, ⌃ or fn) and scroll sideways to slide the strip.

window-rule {}

window-rule {
    match app-id=r#"firefox$"# title="^Picture-in-Picture$"
    open-floating true
}

Ribbon: Window rules. Pick a running app and it always floats. Calculator and System Settings float by default, and dialogs and fixed-size windows float on their own. Rules match whole apps, not titles, and there's no regex. The other rule properties, such as open-on-output, open-on-workspace, open-maximized, a per-app default-column-width, block-out-from and geometry-corner-radius, have no equivalent.

output, animations and workspaces

output "eDP-1" {
    scale 2
    position x=1280 y=0
}
animations {
    slowdown 2.0
}

• output: resolution, scale, rotation and position belong to macOS. Use System Settings → Displays. Ribbon gives every display its own strip automatically.
• animations: Ribbon has one Animation speed slider for its spring (default 14; 0 turns it off, like animations { off }). Lower values feel slower, so it plays the role of slowdown. There are no per-animation springs or easing curves. Animate size changes too is off by default, so windows slide but snap to a new size.
• Workspaces: Ribbon has none of its own. Each macOS Space on each display gets its own strip. Use Mission Control to add Spaces, and turn on "Displays have separate Spaces" and off "Automatically rearrange Spaces"; Mac Setup checks both.

The full table

Two things Ribbon has that niri's config doesn't: Restore the layout after a restart, and an Advanced field where power users can append raw engine TOML in Paneru's syntax. Most people never need the second one.

Before you buy

If the gaps, presets and centring above cover what your config.kdl did, you'll feel at home. If you rely on struts, per-app widths or niri's workspaces, look at the free options in niri for Mac and Ribbon vs OmniWM too. Try the strip in the live demo, then buy Ribbon if it fits.