niri v0.1.7 is out with fractional scaling, window screencasts and many smaller improvements!

https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/releases/tag/v0.1.7

#niri #smithay #wayland #rust

Release v0.1.7 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Here are the i...

GitHub
Apparently there's a cool Pango flag that enables subpixel glyph positioning which makes things scale smoother and improves kerning! Thanks Benjamin (the GTK maintainer) for the suggestion

Oops, looks like niri had outstarred PaperWM on GitHub ๐Ÿ™ˆ

PaperWM introduced me to (and made me fall in love with) scrollable tiling. It's a solid implementation on top of GNOME, so you get all the benefits of running a stable and well-supported DE (and Xwayland). PaperWM is also a very direct inspiration for many parts of niri!

https://github.com/paperwm/PaperWM

GitHub - paperwm/PaperWM: Tiled scrollable window management for GNOME Shell

Tiled scrollable window management for GNOME Shell - paperwm/PaperWM

GitHub

Implemented the thing where you can toggle the mouse pointer on the screenshot after the fact (by pressing P). Gonna add a help panel here soon to remind you of this.

#niri

Much better

#niri

key repeat + scrollable tiling = fun

#niri

One of the niri users has contributed a gradient interpolation color space setting! Now you can do pretty gradient borders in srgb-linear, oklab and oklch (in all four hue directions).

#niri

I made a COPR for git builds of niri: https://copr.fedorainfracloud.org/coprs/yalter/niri-git

Apparently this is a thing you can do; relatively easily, even. It's fully automatic, triggers on a webhook from GitHub.

Thanks Michael (my4ng) from our Matrix channel for showing me the relevant docs and doing the initial work!

#niri

yalter/niri-git Copr

niri has reached 3000 stars yesterday!
also in an act of severe procrastination i decided to try drawing a diagram of the redraw state machine: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/wiki/Redraw-Loop
Redraw Loop

A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Contribute to YaLTeR/niri development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Spent a better part of today, but I've got dmabuf modifier negotiation fully working in my pipewire screencasting code in niri! This happens to finally fix screencasting on NVIDIA GPUs. Still haven't got any GStreamer pipeline working though, maybe needs a pipewire update.

Apparently, my AMD selects a BGRA format modifier that has two planes. Some out of band info I suppose. And on Intel a preferred BGRA modifier has three entire planes!

#niri #pipewire

My Wayland compositor, niri, turns one today! 

Here's v0.1.8 with bind key repeat, screenshot UI pointer toggle, gradient color spaces, wlr screencopy v3 and output management, and lots of other improvements: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/releases/tag/v0.1.8

#niri #smithay #wayland #rust

Release v0.1.8 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Today is a spe...

GitHub

omg, my friend drew a birthday nirik  

i recorded a demo video for the focus-follows-mouse section to showcase it lol

Several days and a lot of hair pulling later, I *think* I got resize transactions working?? Maybe? Hopefully?

Resize transactions is when all windows that must resize together, resize together, with no mismatching frames in between. For example, all windows in a column must add up to the full screen height.

This requires correct configure acks on the client (looking at you, Blender) and very careful state update delaying and resize throttling on the compositor side.

#niri

narrator: there was still one case where it didn't work due to a bug

okay, surely this time it definitely works for all correctly written clients

Here's one mainly for people who disable animations: window closing now runs in a transaction with the other windows resizing. This means, no background flicker.

#niri

There's been another logo discussion in the niri Matrix room with some quite interesting concepts emerging. Here's one by Endg4me_ with edits by bluelinden and myself, and inspiration from a concept by ElKowar.

What do you think?

#niri

I'm working on an "event stream" IPC for niri where you get notified about events as they happen. For example, "workspace switched" or "keyboard layout changed".

To give it a good test, I actually started implementing native niri support in Waybar. You can give it a try too: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/453#issuecomment-2317110904

#niri

Event stream IPC by YaLTeR ยท Pull Request #453 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Some basic scaffolding for an event stream IPC. Changed the client to read only a single line worth of response. This mirrors how the server works, and will be necessary to tell apart further mes...

GitHub

I finished the initial event stream IPC implementation for niri. My Waybar fork implements a decent amount of the modules niri/workspaces, niri/window, niri/language. Please give that a try, also anyone who makes IPC scripts or bars please give a try to the event stream IPC itself so we can find any design flaws before merging.

The PR you will need: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/453#issuecomment-2321730996

Waybar fork is linked from there.

#niri

Event stream IPC by YaLTeR ยท Pull Request #453 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Some basic scaffolding for an event stream IPC. Changed the client to read only a single line worth of response. This mirrors how the server works, and will be necessary to tell apart further mes...

GitHub

The other day, Christian Meissl finished updating and publishing the libdisplay-info bindings [1]. This is quite exciting because, unlike edid-rs, it can parse the manufacturer/model/serial from pretty much any monitor.

So, today I spend a few hours integrating the manufacturer/model/serial monitor addressing all throughout niri: config, IPC, niri msg, screencast output selector. You should now be able to write/use "SomeCompany CoolMonitor 1234" everywhere!

[1]: https://lib.rs/crates/libdisplay-info

#niri

libdisplay-info

EDID and DisplayID library

Lib.rs

Set up CI rustdoc publishing for niri-ipc: https://yalter.github.io/niri/niri_ipc/

This has the entirety of the niri IPC documented, including the new event stream events.

#niri

niri_ipc - Rust

Types for communicating with niri via IPC.

After the Waybar maintainer speedran merging my niri modules and releasing, I would feel bad delaying any longer, so here's niri 0.1.9 :)

Event stream IPC for bars, better window resizing, properly named outputs, on-demand VRR, out-of-the-box fix for NVIDIA flickering, and other improvements!

https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/releases/tag/v0.1.9

#niri #smithay #wayland #rust

Release v0.1.9 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Here are the i...

GitHub
wtf did I Just Make

Over the past 2 weeks I've been slowly but surely working on the interactive move niri PR [1] by @pajn. It's already got me to fix quite a bit of tech debt in the layout code, which is cool.

The PR is still rough around the edges, but mostly works, and I switched to running the branch on my own systems to give it thorough testing.

(also no, this is not the Floating Layer yet, though it's a good step towards that)

Attaching a video of what it looks like rn

[1]: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/pull/547

#niri

Implement interactive move by Pajn ยท Pull Request #547 ยท YaLTeR/niri

I've started working on interactive move support as I eventually want #122 but it's a little too big to start with. Interactive move feels smaller but still like a step towards it. Currentl...

GitHub

Made interactive move work on touch (and resize too while I was at it), didn't need that many changes actually

#niri

Added a bit of rubberbanding before the window is "dragged out" of the layout. Should help avoid unintended layout changes.

Along with a few more fixes I did, I think interactive move should be good to merge? It's not 100% perfect and jank free, but I'm fairly sure I got all the important things done. Will give it some more testing.

#niri

Suddenly, @drakulix showcasing the Cosmic session running on, among other compositors, niri! On the big screen at the Ubuntu Summit ๐Ÿ˜„

https://github.com/Drakulix/cosmic-ext-extra-sessions

#niri

GitHub - Drakulix/cosmic-ext-extra-sessions: Inofficial session variants for cosmic-epoch

Inofficial session variants for cosmic-epoch. Contribute to Drakulix/cosmic-ext-extra-sessions development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

somehow this touch moving under stationary pointer works better than i expected

(yes trying to do a precise left click with an elbow was difficult)

By the way! I'll be giving a talk at RustCon in Moscow on December, 6!  

https://rustcon.ru/

Wherein I will briefly describe what a Wayland compositor is, and then show several testing and profiling workflows that I've been using to keep niri stable, robust and performant.

(The invitation to submit a talk was completely unexpected, guess niri found its way into the right eyes. ๐Ÿ˜…)

There will be a recording, though in Russian.

#rust #niri

RustCon

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Interactive window moving, laptop lid and tablet mode switch binds, mouse and touchpad scroll speed setting in today's niri v0.1.10 release!

https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/releases/tag/v0.1.10

Also, niri-ipc is now on crates.io, but keep in mind that it will not be Rust-semver-stable: https://crates.io/crates/niri-ipc

#wayland #smithay #rust #niri

Release v0.1.10 ยท YaLTeR/niri

Niri is a scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Windows are arranged in columns on an infinite strip going to the right. Opening a new window never causes existing windows to resize. Here are the i...

GitHub

Added scaffolding for layer rules, along with a block-out-from rule. Now you can finally block notifications from screencasts!

Though, layer-shell surfaces don't have a "geometry" so if they have shadows or transparent padding, all of that becomes solid black, since niri has no way to know where the "actual content" of the layer surface is (that's what geometry is for windows).

#niri

We hit 4000 stars today on the niri repo!!  

#niri

Thanks to Christian Meissl's fix in Smithay, the git version of niri correctly shows nested pop-up menus in lxqt-panel. They also submitted a fix for invalid pop-up spawning to ironbar, which makes it work on Smithay compositors.

#niri #lxqt

Somehow, a small change for tests escalated into trying to completely refactor how animation timing works in niri. And right now I find myself at the exact opposite of this picture. Unfortunately, time has not stopped and is causing problems
Like three complete refactors later, I think it's... working? For real this time? No weird issue is gonna sneak up that undermines the whole design?
Nothing seems to have caught on fire after one more day of personal testing and one more day in main. So here's a technical page I wrote about the the new niri animation timing design and its motivations: https://github.com/YaLTeR/niri/wiki/Animation-Timing
Animation Timing

A scrollable-tiling Wayland compositor. Contribute to YaLTeR/niri development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHub

Today I merged a PR by FluxTape which adds "always empty workspace before first" to niri. At the surface this is just a simple config flag with obvious behavior, but it's actually full of edge cases! Things like which workspace to focus at startup. The code refers to workspaces by index in many places, and those all shift when you suddenly insert an empty workspace at index 0.

Took several days to catch them all even with our randomized tests, but I think it should be good now.

#niri

>did a +4,657 โˆ’4,237 refactor in the layout code
>while testing, already found two uncaught regressions introduced in previous niri releases, and no issues with the refactor

This morning was my niri (-adjacent) talk!  Went really well, got many interesting questions!

They promised us video recordings in a few days, so I'll post a link when I get it. Though of course the talk is in Russian.

I'm thinking of switching niri to the year.month versioning. So instead of 0.1.11, the next release will be 24.12 or 25.01, and so on. Hotfix releases will use patch like 25.01.1.

Are there any issues with this versioning that I should consider? There won't be releases more frequently than monthly so that's not a problem.

#niri

@YaLTeR i think CalVer would indeed make a lot of sense for niri
@YaLTeR I think it is a fine versioning scheme, works well for applications. And if you ever want to do non-patch releases more frequently, you can switch the second part from month to week-of-year! (and then back next year, if need be!)
@YaLTeR honestly the only very minor issue I see is that this looks a lot like the year.month versions of many diatros like Ubuntu and NixOS, which release exactly twice a year. and at a glance, I would assume this meant the same. this has no significant implications.

may I suggest using a four-digit year
like Sharkey does? this way, it's "obviously" date-based even with no context or explanation. in particular, they have yyyy.m.n where n=1 at the start of each month and increments after each release. which is basically equivalent to what you were thinking of except it always specifies a patch number, even if only one release happens in a month
Releases ยท TransFem.org / Sharkey ยท GitLab

๐ŸŒŽ A Sharkish microblogging platform ๐Ÿš€

GitLab

@sodiboo hmm. Admittedly, it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the year.month in Ubuntu is, in fact, year.month, and four digits would clear that up a bit. I would prefer zero-padded double-digit month for the same reason.

On the other hand, spelling out the whole 2024 seems a tad redundant, and there are other projects like Helix that use double-digit year.month so it's not like there's no precedent.

@YaLTeR

spelling out the whole 2024 seems a tad redundantok but what if niri lives to be 100 years old? wouldn't want another Y2.1K now would we?

(even if redundant I do think it's more aesthetically pleasing, and it's not like the length has any practical downside?)
it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that the year.month in Ubuntu is, in fact, year.month, and four digits would clear that up a bit. honestly yeah same, but now that I am aware of this and I've seen it in several other distros, that scheme reads to me as usually-semiannual. and given that niri is a compositor which is such a core component of a system that it's not uncommon to align with distro releases, it would make sense just by the class of software for niri to have such s release schedule.

this is, additionally, the only argument I can think of against
YY.MM. like it's all arbitrary anyways and it doesn't really matter in the end because you do have to pick something, but personally I like four-digit year betterI would prefer zero-padded double-digit month [because it's more obviously rooted in the Georgian calendar] yeah I have no opinion in favor of or against this.

---

also worth considering: at a certain point, a patch release might look like it's the full date. like when I installed Sharkey, I assumed
2024.5.3 meant it's from the third of May (it means that's the third release in May). so maybe a different separator is worth using, to show that the third field isn't a date? I guess it's "obviously" +.

@sodiboo

> ok but what if niri lives to be 100 years old? wouldn't want another Y2.1K now would we?

The world runs on huge AI clusters. Everyone is streaming their thoughts into a neutral network and receiving the complete rendered output directly into their brains. And then there are the two weird users, one connecting to the singularity through an IRC bridge, and the other scrolling tiles on their ancient manual computer

@YaLTeR yeah and the ancient scroll will break on that day as the versioning scheme ends. the weird user at the turn of the century will get to a pivot point, where the tiles shatter and they will need to get satisfaction in other ways. and you don't want to find out what they're capable of, especially not while they're on a dopamine-thirsty spree.

so you should probably make the year 4 digit to prevent this apocalypse scenario.
@sodiboo @YaLTeR Or use hexadecimal for the year, that way you gain 155 more years
@Tau @YaLTeR well no, then we die in Y2K48
@sodiboo
Just go and make it 5 digits 02025 so we are prepared for the next 8000+ years.
@YaLTeR
@chfkch @YaLTeR nooo you have doomed us all because now it's an octal literal and only goes up to 07777