Release of River 0.4.0 with the separation of composite and window managers

Ç released the composite manager River 0.4.0, which, unlike other composite managers based on the Wayland protocol, uses a modular architecture with the window manager separated into a standalone program. In River, window managers are pluggable, and users can select them according to their preferences. The project code is written in Zig and is distributed under the GPLv3 license.

River can run in nested sessions launched on top of other X11 and Wayland servers, as well as without layers, using KMS/DRM drivers for output. To separate the functionality of composite and window managers, the project develops the Wayland protocol river-window-management-v1. Functions such as window decoration, input focus control, pointer management, keyboard shortcuts, position, and size of windows are transferred to the window manager.

It is possible to switch window managers on the fly without interrupting the session. A selection of 16 window managers compatible with River is offered, including tiled window managers like DWM or xmonad, Emacs-like ones such as EXWM, and classic stack-based and scrolling ribbon-based ones. Xwayland support is available for launching X11 applications.

Among the reasons for separating composite and window managers is mentioned: lowering the threshold for writing window managers; the possibility of implementing window managers in high-level languages with garbage collection, which do not impact the performance of the composite manager; the ability to hot-swap window managers without restarting the composite and running graphical programs; simplifying experiments related to window manager design. serverë The limitations of the river-window-management-v1 protocol include the lack of functionality beyond 2D operations with the desktop; for example, it does not support creating complex effects and 3D interfaces for virtual reality systems. Effects are currently limited to simple animations, but in the future, more complex effects are planned to be implemented using shaders.

Ç released the composite manager River 0.4.0, which, unlike other composite managers based on the Wayland protocol, uses a modular architecture with the window manager separated into a standalone.

Burimi: opennet.ru