✨ Stringcast (Wayland UI Edition)

Stringcast is a lightweight, floating desktop utility that uses AI to instantly transform your text.

• It acts as your persistent, "always-on-top" AI assistant right on your desktop.
• It is perfect for fixing grammar, adopting a professional tone, or translating a paragraph.
• This project is specifically designed as a secure, root-free solution for modern Linux desktops running Wayland.

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🌟 Key Features

• Always-On-Top UI: A sleek, floating PyQt6 interface that stays accessible over your other windows.
• Instant AI Transformations: Powered by Google's gemini-2.0-flash (and OpenAI as a fallback) to rewrite, translate, or summarize text instantly.
• Frictionless Workflow: Simply paste your text, select a transformation, and copy the polished result back to your clipboard.
• Standalone Executable: Fully compiled with PyInstaller—users don't need to install Python or system libraries to run it.

🛡️ The Wayland Security Model

If you use a modern Linux desktop (GNOME, KDE on Wayland), you might wonder why this isn't a background script that listens to your keyboard.

• Strict Isolation: By design, Wayland strictly isolates applications. It intentionally blocks global key-logging and synthetic keystroke injection to protect users from malicious software.
• The Sudo Problem: While workarounds exist (like reading raw hardware events via /dev/input), they require running scripts as root (using sudo).
• The Environment Conflict: Running desktop scripts as root is insecure, cumbersome for daily use, and breaks standard Python virtual environments.
• Our Solution: This application bypasses the issue entirely using a native graphical interface. It provides a seamless copy-paste workflow that fully respects Wayland's security sandbox—meaning no sudo required!

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🚀 Installation & Usage (For Users)

You do not need to install Python or touch the terminal to use Stringcast.

1. Download the App

• Navigate to the Releases page of this repository.
• Download the latest stringcast_ui.zip file and extract it.

2. Configure your API Key

• In the exact same folder where you extracted the stringcast_ui app, create a new text file named .env.
• Open the file and add your Gemini API key (and optionally OpenAI):

  GEMINI_API_KEY="your_actual_key_here"
  # OPENAI_API_KEY="optional_fallback_key"

3. Run the Application

• Make it Executable: Right-click the downloaded stringcast_ui file -> Properties -> Permissions -> check "Allow executing file as program". (Alternatively, run chmod +x stringcast_ui in your terminal).
• Launch: Double-click the file to open the floating window and start transforming text!

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🛠️ Development & Building from Source

Want to add custom prompts, new languages, or UI features? Building Stringcast from source is straightforward.

1. Clone & Setup

git clone [https://github.com/mclovin22117/stringcast_wayland.git](https://github.com/mclovin22117/stringcast_wayland.git)
cd stringcast_wayland
python3 -m venv venv
source venv/bin/activate

2. Install Dependencies

pip install PyQt6 google-generativeai openai python-dotenv pyinstaller

3. Run Locally

• Ensure your .env file is in the root directory.
• Run the app directly via Python:

  python stringcast_ui.py

4. Build the Standalone Executable To compile the app into a single distributable binary, use the included PyInstaller configuration:

pyinstaller --noconsole --onefile --hidden-import openai --hidden-import google.generativeai --hidden-import dotenv stringcast_ui.py

• Your compiled application will be generated inside the dist/ folder.

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🤝 Contributing

Contributions are always welcome! Whether it is adding a new AI provider, tweaking the UI, or optimizing the build size:

• Fork the Project
• Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
• Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
• Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
• Open a Pull Request

📄 License

Distributed under the MIT License. See the LICENSE file for more information.