3 ms·

Most of the issues with Wayland are down to a few popular compositor writers making stupid decisions. Case in point: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/iss

by ratww 5y ago

Most of the issues with Wayland are down to a few popular compositor writers making stupid decisions. Case in point: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/mutter/-/issues/217 Here's what a desktop looks like without server-side decorations: https://i.redd.it/nj4y50dcbza11.png https://i.redd.it/nj4y50dcbza11.png . It's stupid. There's no excuse for not offering a default "look and feel" of windows for your users. As an app developer, my choice is to ship a whole third-party library just to draw those things, or have a rectangle without borders show up in your user's computers.

hexo 5y ago
This is complete tragedy for user like me, who can't stand window decorations and see no use for it. This lack of coherent look and feel seems as very backwards step to visual smog. Thanks but no thanks.
sprash 5y ago
The lack of server side window decorations has much more severe implications beyond aesthetics. Unresponsive applications can not be closed by clicking the X button. And for the compositor to find out if an application is unresponsive or not literally means solving the halting problem.
- vetinari 5y ago
  > Unresponsive applications can not be closed by clicking the X button. They cannot be closed with server decorations either; if the client doesn't process the even queue and ignores WM_DELETE_WINDOW, it doesn't matter who paints the decoration. > for the compositor to find out if an application is unresponsive or not literally means solving the halting problem. Not in Wayland; if the client doesn't process events, the compositor knows that. It is just a matter of deciding on timeout value and then letting the user know (mutter does that, for example). --- However, client side decorations ho have much more severe implications beyond estetic. For starters, with server decorations, you cannot guarantee frame-perfect synchronization of decoration and client area painting; with client decorations, you can, the same process does it.
  - hawski 5y ago
    Does Wayland not have an equivalent of _NET_WM_PID?
    - vetinari 5y ago
      Strictly speaking, Wayland doesn't need it. The connection is always unix socket, so it is easy to find out the pid on the other end, reliably, without relying on well behaved client setting up things correctly.
hawski 5y ago
I generally like CSD, but I think SSD support should be a standard. But I just wonder about a side solution: wouldn't it be possible to do a CSD wrapper app for apps not rendering their own decorations? It would be a proxy Wayland compositor, that would push out windows with decorations. It could even support XDG-Decoration. Of course it is not a perfect solution, because then packager or desktop environment would have to decide if to wrap the command invocation with this proxy compositor. It probably could be done with two .desktop files one with the wrapper and OnlyShowIn=GNOME and the other without it with NotShowIn=GNOME. It sucks that GNOME's world view on the issue is a push back for other projects. Windows is CSD AFAIK, but when the app is not responding it will draw decorations for it. That's one of the many benefits of supporting it.
- johntb86 5y ago
  Windows is sort of a hybrid. The close/minimize/maximize buttons, border, and background blur are rendered by the server (the background blur on Vista and windows 7 couldn't possibly be rendered by the client), but I think the window caption is rendered by the application.
  - hawski 5y ago
    I remember seeing the caption with appended "(Not Responding)" and cursory Google Image search shows me windows like that. i.e. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-shell-common-dll-is-not-responding/9f869336-153c-4133-aa12-e8185f4cfcd7 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-...
jitl 5y ago
macOS uses client-side decorations in its windowing system, and doesn’t have this issue with inconsistency. Maybe the problem is not in the design of the compositor?
- ratww 5y ago
  Cocoa (and most Wayland compositors) have default decoration. Gnome does not. That's left to app makers to do it. The issue is not the design of the compositor, just the lack of a default decoration.

by ratww 5y ago

hexo 5y ago

This is complete tragedy for user like me, who can't stand window decorations and see no use for it. This lack of coherent look and feel seems as very backwards step to visual smog. Thanks but no thanks.

sprash 5y ago

The lack of server side window decorations has much more severe implications beyond aesthetics. Unresponsive applications can not be closed by clicking the X button. And for the compositor to find out if an application is unresponsive or not literally means solving the halting problem.

vetinari 5y ago
> Unresponsive applications can not be closed by clicking the X button. They cannot be closed with server decorations either; if the client doesn't process the even queue and ignores WM_DELETE_WINDOW, it doesn't matter who paints the decoration. > for the compositor to find out if an application is unresponsive or not literally means solving the halting problem. Not in Wayland; if the client doesn't process events, the compositor knows that. It is just a matter of deciding on timeout value and then letting the user know (mutter does that, for example). --- However, client side decorations ho have much more severe implications beyond estetic. For starters, with server decorations, you cannot guarantee frame-perfect synchronization of decoration and client area painting; with client decorations, you can, the same process does it.
- hawski 5y ago
  Does Wayland not have an equivalent of _NET_WM_PID?
  - vetinari 5y ago
    Strictly speaking, Wayland doesn't need it. The connection is always unix socket, so it is easy to find out the pid on the other end, reliably, without relying on well behaved client setting up things correctly.

hawski 5y ago

I generally like CSD, but I think SSD support should be a standard. But I just wonder about a side solution: wouldn't it be possible to do a CSD wrapper app for apps not rendering their own decorations? It would be a proxy Wayland compositor, that would push out windows with decorations. It could even support XDG-Decoration. Of course it is not a perfect solution, because then packager or desktop environment would have to decide if to wrap the command invocation with this proxy compositor. It probably could be done with two .desktop files one with the wrapper and OnlyShowIn=GNOME and the other without it with NotShowIn=GNOME. It sucks that GNOME's world view on the issue is a push back for other projects. Windows is CSD AFAIK, but when the app is not responding it will draw decorations for it. That's one of the many benefits of supporting it.

johntb86 5y ago
Windows is sort of a hybrid. The close/minimize/maximize buttons, border, and background blur are rendered by the server (the background blur on Vista and windows 7 couldn't possibly be rendered by the client), but I think the window caption is rendered by the application.
- hawski 5y ago
  I remember seeing the caption with appended "(Not Responding)" and cursory Google Image search shows me windows like that. i.e. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-performance/windows-shell-common-dll-is-not-responding/9f869336-153c-4133-aa12-e8185f4cfcd7 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-...

jitl 5y ago

macOS uses client-side decorations in its windowing system, and doesn’t have this issue with inconsistency. Maybe the problem is not in the design of the compositor?

ratww 5y ago
Cocoa (and most Wayland compositors) have default decoration. Gnome does not. That's left to app makers to do it. The issue is not the design of the compositor, just the lack of a default decoration.