Nicotine

High-performance EVE Online multiboxing for Linux (X11 and Wayland) and Windows. Run many EVE clients at once and switch between them instantly, using your mouse side buttons, keyboard hotkeys, or a single command.

Nicotine runs a small background daemon that holds the window-manager connection and cycle state in memory, so switching the focused client takes about 2ms over a local socket instead of the 50-100ms it costs to spawn a fresh process each time. A control panel and one live preview per client ride on top.

Features

  • Instant client cycling: go forward and backward through your clients, or jump straight to one by number.
  • Live preview windows: one thumbnail per EVE client (XComposite and XRender on Linux, DWM thumbnails on Windows), or a compact List mode instead.
  • Config panel: set character order, per-character jump hotkeys, preview sizing, and display mode, with changes applied live.
  • Auto-stack: center and size every EVE client so they overlap perfectly.
  • Drag-to-position: snap previews to one another, and lock the layout so they can't be nudged mid-fight.
  • Minimize inactive clients: optionally minimize them as you cycle away, to save resources.

How it works

nicotine start launches three things in one process: the daemon (cycling, hotkey listeners, preview manager), the config panel (the visible window), and the preview windows. The CLI verbs (nicotine forward, nicotine 2, and so on) and the built-in hotkey listeners all send short commands to the daemon over a local socket, which performs a non-blocking window activation.

Platform support

  • Linux (X11): full support.
  • Linux (Wayland): KDE Plasma (via wmctrl and XWayland), Sway (via swaymsg), and Hyprland (via hyprctl).
  • Windows 10 / 11: full support (DWM thumbnail previews, native input hooks).

Where to next

  • Installation: install on Linux or Windows, or build from source.
  • Usage: the config panel, cycling, and mouse and keyboard bindings.
  • Configuration: every config.toml option and what it does.
  • Troubleshooting: clients not detected, buttons not firing, Wayland notes.