Skip to content
labwc 0.6.0

This release contains significant refactoring to use the wlroots
scene-graph API. This touches many areas of the code, particularly
rendering, server-side-decoration, the layer-shell implementation and the
menu. Many thanks to @Consolatis for doing most of the heavy lifting with
this.

Noteworthy, related changes include:

- The use of a buffer implementation instead of using wlr_texture. It
  handles both images and fonts, and scales according to output scale.
- The use of node-descriptors to assign roles to wlr_scene_nodes in order
  to simplify the code.
- Improving the "Debug" action to print scene-graph trees

A large number of bugs and regressions have been fixed following the
re-factoring, too many to list here, but we are grateful to all who have
reported, tested and fixed issues. Particular mentions go to @bi4k8,
@flrian, @heroin-moose, @jlindgren90, @Joshua-Ashton, @01micko and @skerit

Added

- Set environment variable LABWC_PID to the pid of the compositor so that
  SIGHUP and SIGTERM can be sent to specific instances.
- Add command line options --exit and --reconfigure.
- Support setting keyboard repeat and delay at runtime. Written-by: @bi4k8
- Add support for mouse-wheel bindings. Set default bindings to switch
  workspaces when scrolling on the desktop.  Written-by: @Arnaudv6
- Implement key repeat for keybindings. Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Support smooth scroll and horizontal scroll. Written-by: @bi4k8
- Implement virtual keyboard and pointer protocols, enabling the use of
  clients such as wtype and wayvnc. Written-by: @Joshua-Ashton
- Add github workflow CI including Debian, FreeBSD, Arch and Void,
  including a build without xwayland.
- Support keybind "None" action to clear other actions for a particular
  keybind context. Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Support font slant (itliacs) and weight (bold). Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Support `<default />` mousebinds to load default mousebinds and provide
  a way to keep config files simpler whilst allowing user specific binds.
  Issue #416. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Add config option `<core><cycleViewOutlines>` to enable/disable preview
  of outlines. Written-by: @Flrian
- Render submenu arrows
- Allow highest level menu definitions - typically used for root-menu and
  client-menu - to be defined without label attritube, for example like this:
  `<openbox_menu><menu id="root-menu">...</menu></openbox>`. Issue #472
- Allow xdg-desktop-portal-wlr to work out of the box by initializing dbus
  and systemd activation environment. This enables for example OBS Studio
  to work with no user configuration. If systemd or dbus is not available
  the environment update will fail gracefully. PR #461
  Written-by: @Joshua-Ashton and @Consolatis
- Workspaces. Written-by: @Consolatis
- presentation-time protocol
- Native language support for client-menus. Written-by: @01micko
- Touch support. Written-by: @bi4k8
- drm_lease_v1 for VR to work and leasing of desktop displays.
  Written-by: Joshua Ashton
- ToggleAlwaysOnTop action. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Command line option -C to specify config directory
- Theme options osd.border.color and osd.border.width. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Menu `<separator />` and associated theme options:
  menu.separator.width, menu.separator.padding.width,
  menu.separator.padding.height and menu.separator.color
- Adjust maximized and tiled windows according to usable_area taking
  into account exclusive layer-shell clients. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Restore natural geometry when moving tiled/maximized window
  Fixes #391. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Improve action implementation to take a list of arguments in preperation
  for actions with multiple arguments. Written-by: @Consolatis

Fixed

- Remove unwanted gap when initially (on map) positioning windows larger
  than output usable area (issue #403).
- Prevent setting cursor icon on drag. Written-by: @Consolatis (issue #549)
- Fix bugs relating to sending matching pairs of press and release
  keycodes to clients when using keybinds. Also fix related key-repeat
  bug. (Issue #510)
- Fix wlr_output_cursor initialization bug on new output.
  Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Show correct cursor for resize action triggered by keybind.
  Written-by: @jlindgren
- Fix bug which manifest itself when keeping button pressed in GTK3 menu
  and firefox context menu. Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Enable tap be default on non-touch devices (which some laptop trackpads
  apparently are)
- Handle missing cursor theme (issue #246). Written-by: @Consolatis
- Fix various surface syncronization, stacking, positioning and focus
  issues, including those related to both xwayland, scroll/drag events
  and also #526 #483
- On first map, do not center xwayland views with explicitly specified
  position. Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Give keyboard focus back to topmost mapped view when unmapping topmost
  xwayland unmanaged surfaces, such as dmenu. Written-by: @Consolatis.
- Fix mousebind ordering and replace earlier mousebinds by later ones
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Fix various bugs associated with destroying/disabling outputs, including
  issue #497
- Hide Alt-Tab switcher when canceling via Escape. @jlindgren90
- (Re)set seat when xwayland is ready (because wlroots reset the seat
  assigned to xwayland to NULL whenever Xwayland terminates).
  Issues #166 #444. Written-by: @Consolatis. Helped-by: @droc12345
- Increase File Descriptor (FD) limit to max because a compositor has to
  handle many: client connections, DMA-BUFs, wl_data_device pipes and so on.
  Fixes client freeze/crashes (swaywm/sway#6642). Written-by: @Joshua-Ashton
- Fix crash when creating a cursor constraint and there is no currently
  focused view.
- Gracefully handle dying client during interactive move.
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Dynamically adjust server-side-deccoration invisible resize areas based
  on usable_area to ensure that cursor events are sent to clients such as
  panels in preference to grabbing window edges. Fixes #265.
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Always position submenus inside output extents. Fixes #276
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Do not crash when changing TTY. Written-by: @bi4k8
- Set wlroots.wrap to a specific commit rather than master because it
  enables labwc commits to be checked out and build without manually
  having to find the right wlroots commit if there are upstream breaking
  changes.
- Increase accuracy of window center-alignment, taking into account
  usable_area and window decoration. Also, top/left align if window is
  bigger than usable area.
- Handle view-destruction during alt-tab cycling.
  Written-by: @Joshua-Ashton
- Survive all outputs being disabled
- Check that double-clicks are on the same window. Written-by: yizixiao
- Set xdg-shell window position before maximize on first map so that the
  unmaximized geometry is known when started in maximized mode.
  Fixes issue #305. Reported-by: @01micko
- Support `<menu><item><action name="Execute"><execute>`
  `<exectue>` is a deprecated name for `<command>`, but is supported for
  backward compatibility with old menu-generators.
- Keep xwayland-shell SSD state on unmap/map cycle.
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Prevent segfault on missing direction arguments. Reported-by: @flrian
- Fix keybind insertion order to restore intended behavior of keybinds
  set by `<default />`. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Ensure client-menu actions are always applied on window they belong to
  This fixes #380. Written-by: @Consolatis
- Keep window margin in sync when toggling decorations.
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Fix handling of client-initiated configure requests.
  Written-by: @jlindgren90
- Always react to new output configuration. Reported-by @heroin-moose and
  Written-by: @Consolatis
- Fix bug in environment variable expansion by allowing underscores to be
  part of the variable names. Issue #439
- Fix parsing bug of adaptiveSync setting and test for support

Changed

- src/config/rcxml.c: distinguish between no and unknown font places so
  that `<font>` with no `place` attribute can be added after other font
  elements without over-writing their values. Written-by: @bi4k8
- theme: change window.label.text.justify default to center
- Redefine the SSD "Title" context to cover the whole Titlebar area except
  the parts occupied by buttons. This allows "Drag" and "DoubleClick"
  actions to be de-coupled from buttons. As a result, "Drag" and
  "DoubleClick" actions previously defined against "TitleBar" should now
  come under the "Title" context, for example:
  `<mousebind button="Left" action="Drag"><action name="Move"/></mousebind>`
- Remove default alt-escape keybind for Exit because too many people have
  exited the compositor by mistake trying to get out of alt-tab cycling
  or similar.