A release of the labwc 0.7 (Lab Wayland Compositor) project is available, developing a composite server for Wayland with features reminiscent of the Openbox window manager (the project is touted as an attempt to create an alternative to Openbox for Wayland). Of the features of labwc, minimalism, compact implementation, extensive customization options and high performance are called. The project code is written in C language and distributed under the GPLv2 license.
The wlroots library is used as a basis, developed by the developers of the Sway user environment and providing basic functions for organizing the work of the Wayland-based composite manager. Of the extended Wayland protocols, wlr-output-management is supported to configure output devices, layer-shell to organize the work of the desktop shell, and foreign-toplevel to connect your own panels and window switches.
It is possible to connect add-ons with the implementation of such functions as creating screenshots, displaying wallpapers on the desktop, placing panels and menus. Animated effects, gradients, and icons (with the exception of window buttons) are fundamentally not supported. To run X11 applications in an environment based on the Wayland protocol, the use of the XWayland DDX component is supported. The theme, basic menu and hotkeys are configured through configuration files in xml format. There is built-in support for high pixel density (HiDPI) screens.
In addition to the built-in root menu configurable via menu.xml, third-party application menu implementations such as bemenu, fuzzel, and wofi can be included. As a panel, you can use Waybar, sfwbar, Yambar or LavaLauncher. To control the connection of monitors and change their parameters, it is suggested to use wlr-randr or kanshi. The screen is locked using swaylock.
Key changes in the new release:
- The transition to a new branch of the wlroots 0.17 library has been made.
- Added support for the Wayland protocol cursor-shape-v1, used to customize the appearance of the cursor by transmitting a series of cursor images.
- Added support for the Wayland fractional-scale protocol, which allows the composite manager to pass non-integer surface scaling values, allowing the client to specify a more precise size of buffers for wp_viewport objects, compared to passing rounded scale information.
- Added support for icons in window title bars.
- The interface for switching between windows has the ability to scroll back by pressing the left or up arrow.
- Added setting osd.workspace-switcher.boxes.{width,height} to determine the size of thumbnails in the interface for switching between virtual desktops.
- Added new actions VirtualOutputAdd and VirtualOutputRemove for adding and removing virtual output devices.
- Added ResizeTo action for resizing.
- Added ToggleOmnipresent action and "Always on Visible Workspace" option to always place content on the active desktop.
- For applications using XWayland, the _NET_WORKAREA property is set, which allows you to understand the size of the free area on the screen not occupied by panels (for example, it is used in Qt when calculating the size of pop-up menus).
Source: opennet.ru