9 ms·

Wayfire 0.8

143 points by eirikurh 3y ago

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
Is?
- ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
  <crickets>
tmtvl 3y ago
I gave Wayfire a shot a bit earlier in the year, but as I am a Dvorak typist and <https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601 https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601> is marked as "wontfix", I decided to stick to Awesome for the time being. It did run like a dream, though, even on my ancient potato, so if the keybinding issue does get fixed at some point I may well switch over.
- toastal 3y ago
  Oof. That is not an acceptable way to treat the issue. It’s one thing to say you don’t the time & cycles, but it’s another to WONTFIX it twice with a clear usability problem.
  - Vinnl 3y ago
    It seems fine to me. They don't want to update it, so they close the issue. They're under no obligation (not even a moral one) to change their plans, and everyone's free to fork it to implement their own plans.
    - pxc 3y ago
      They seem interested in user feedback and genuinely curious about the use cases of others, though, as evinced by their activity here. Seems like a great time to politely make a case for one's preference, given the new attention and interest. :)
      - Vinnl 3y ago
        Even better :) Either way nothing to be mad at them about.
  - ammen99 3y ago
    As the maintainer of Wayfire, I would like to say why I don't consider this a critical issue: the current system allows you to bind actions to a particular physical key. So, no matter what physical keyboard layout and actual layout in software, with the current system, you can bind the action to the desired physical key. Or do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?
    - toastal 3y ago
      I edit in Vim using Dvorak. I always expect `ciw` to “change inner word” regardless of layout. Most shortcuts are stored in my head in this way, not by physical key placement. That said, it doesn’t bother me that xmonad sets up my keys based on the default layout, so if I switch to another to type in a non-Latin script, the WMs shortcuts stay bound to my ‘normal’ keymap as the others are only used temporarily.
    - malermeister 3y ago
      > do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts? As a colemak user, definitely. It's a super weird and confusing experience otherwise and this bug is a blocker for me checking out your (otherwise quite promising-looking) project.
      - ammen99 3y ago
        Wait, so you use both colemak and the normal qwerty layout and switch between them on the same keyboard? As a vim user, I am hugely relying on muscle memory - which is why saying that bindings should vary between layouts seems really weird, as that would make muscle memory way less effective. Then again, that is my usage ..
        malermeister 3y ago
        It's kind of hard to explain, but I think my brain doesn't go "letter -> key on keyboard", it goes "letter -> location in keyboard layout -> key on keyboard". If the key on keyboard stays the same, even though the layout changes, it really messes with the way my brain maps from letters to muscle movements, idk if this makes sense.
- notRobot 3y ago
  Since the last comment in that thread says there might be some progress at the time of the 0.8.0 announcement, it might be worth asking for an update.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- phkahler 3y ago
  >> It did run like a dream, though, even on my ancient potato I believe this is the compositor they're going to run on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 with the next OS release, so it makes sense it will run on more limited hardware.
theorknfnfn 3y ago
Anyone using it daily? I'd love to hear about what makes the cool animations.. well, cool. My desktop is pretty boring right now.
- bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
  I rather have a boring and stable desktop than these trend of the week WM:s. Time will tell if they even stick around, and become a reasonable daily driver. In wayland-land the only one I managed to use for a couple of days without crashing was sway in 2022. Both their last release and sway-git is crashy
- tombh 3y ago
  I've used Wayfire everyday for a few years now. Although I'm into customisation and tinkering, (so things like Arch, Neovim, and indeed Wayfire, are to my taste), I don't like tiling window managers. I find it's like turning my living room into a workshop. A living space should have sunlight, plants and a sofa to welcome friends. In my opinion wobbly windows and other silly animations are nearer to that kind of organic aesthetic. Wayfire is a living space I can tinker with.
- Congeec 3y ago
  As an average user, wayfire has been pretty reliable since 0.7.5. It is just its ecosystem needs more work.
OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago
> The purpose of workspace sets is to have a dedicated set of normal workspaces for different activities the user does on their computer. For example, I have one workspace set (containing a 2x2 workspace grid) dedicated to Wayfire, where I have Wayfire’s source code, GitHub issues, wlroots, etc. There is another workspace set dedicated to a project I am working on for university, and so on. Of course, a similar effect could be achieved with a single bigger workspace grid, but having a 5x5 workspace grid quickly becomes difficult to navigate. I've wanted this for 7 years
- jcelerier 3y ago
  i've been using https://github.com/infokiller/i3-workspace-groups https://github.com/infokiller/i3-workspace-groups for this to great effect for quite some time
  - bitdivision 3y ago
    Thank you, this looks ideal. I've wanted a way to do this for a long time.
- onli 3y ago
  What blocked you from using any other WM with multiple workspaces in such a configuration?
- binkHN 3y ago
  Doesn't KDE's Activities handle this?
  - pxc 3y ago
    I think they also want tiling behaviors, but I think you can get at least starting positions of application windows in activities and virtual desktops via KWin rules.
- OJFord 3y ago
  > I've wanted this for 7 years Is there a good story behind how specific that is?
dizhn 3y ago
One of the developers just responded on the github issue referecing this thread. (Also reopened the issue and removed wontfix) "After a bit of discussion on HackerNews, I got a bit better understanding of the actual problem. People don't want to just configure the keys according to a particular layout - the actual 'issue' here is that they expect the key binding changes together with the layout. Unfortunately, the 0.8.0 changes didn't make this possible to implement as a plugin. I would reconsider adding this as an option if there are enough interested people. React with a thumbs up to this comment if you are interested in having this option (though the defaults will certainly remain as they are now). Please, react only if you actually use Wayfire or would use it if it had this feature :)" https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601#issuecomment-1755302626 https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601#issuecommen...
- resonious 3y ago
  > the actual 'issue' here is that they expect the key binding changes together with the layout. The issue is that people expect "KEY_Q" to refer to the key that inputs a "q", no? Classic desktop-Linux-level user friendliness.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
charcircuit 3y ago
>IPC socket This IPC is a custom built IPC that has no security. This means that any program can do stuff like steal focus or drive other window manager policy if the plugin is there. There is also a plugin that exposes the ability to send key or mouse events. Applications should just use DBus instead of creating their own custom IPC protocols just because they feel like it.
- bsder 3y ago
  In what way is DBus better than something like Cap'n Proto? What does it cover and not cover? What other IPC/RPCs compete with it? When I start seeing C++, AUTH, and Kerberos I start getting concerned. When I don't find a Python-only module for something claimed to be "simple", I start getting very concerned: https://pypi.org/project/dbus-python/ https://pypi.org/project/dbus-python/
  - charcircuit 3y ago
    >In what way is DBus better than something like Cap'n Proto? In this specific context it is less about being better and more about being the standard for apps that are part of the Linux desktop except for Wayland which has its own. There are benefits in developers all being familiar with dbus, not having to use different clients for each program you want to talk to, it is easier to secure, etc.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > There are benefits in developers all being familiar with dbus, not having to use different clients for each program you want to talk to, it is easier to secure, etc. Is it those things? People don't seem to use DBus at all outside of Linux. That would seem to imply that, by and large, it isn't those things. And the fact that someone on Linux in exactly the situation where it should be used wasn't willing to use it suggests that maybe there are significant issues.
      - charcircuit 3y ago
solarkraft 3y ago
I used Wayfire for a while a couple of years ago. When I checked it out again a few months ago it seemed fairly unmaintained. I'm happy it's alive because I find it to be a great and hugely underrated compositor with great potential.
rapnie 3y ago
Tangential. This is a cool project. But I notice how many projects similar to this one make it hard to find that out. The landing page says: > Wayfire is a wayland compositor based on wlroots. It aims to create a customizable, extendable and lightweight environment without sacrificing its appearance. Now a visitor should know what "wayland" is, and then what a "wayland compositor" is, and only then can they decide if the project is interesting. The description assumes this knowledge, but many people will not take the time to figure it out and just surf to the next interesting thing. Opportunity missed.
- stonogo 3y ago
  Opportunity for what? This isn't a sales environment, and I'm not sure what the benefit is of attracting users who don't know the tools they use. What is the opportunity cost of losing a user who doesn't understand the benefits of the project?
  - rapnie 3y ago
    Nothing sales related. I am a FOSS contributor checking HN regularly and may think "Oh, what's this?" but not spend 2min. in that session. A simple different text could avoid me losing interest. Unless the goal is "If you don't already know about wayland (compositors) this project isn't for you".
    - pxc 3y ago
      Most F/OSS projects probably don't want users who will ignore all but highly productized presentations of their work. That's almost certainly a counter-signal of a user's likelihood to file useful bug reports, let alone contribute. But regarding this project in particular, you have lots of clues. There's a screenshot right there on the page. 'WM', short for 'window manager' is right there in the GitHub organization name. 'Compositor' is a standard term in this domain. It links to the most famous ever compositing window manager on its platform as a source of inspiration. There are basically two groups of people that actively choose a specific window management stack instead of just choosing a whole operating system: advanced or growing Linux hobbyists, and the makers of Linux distros. Both of those groups will absolutely know what Wayland is, and will be able to tell what Wayfire is. And being a member of either requires more than the scant patience you've indicated you have for projects like this. If you don't know what Wayland is and you're committed to not learning it instead of taking '2 minutes' to look it up, you're not the type to choose a window manager or configure a bespoke desktop environment.

Wayfire 0.8

143 points by eirikurh 3y ago

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago

Is?

ShadowBanThis01 3y ago
<crickets>

tmtvl 3y ago

I gave Wayfire a shot a bit earlier in the year, but as I am a Dvorak typist and <https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601 https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601> is marked as "wontfix", I decided to stick to Awesome for the time being. It did run like a dream, though, even on my ancient potato, so if the keybinding issue does get fixed at some point I may well switch over.

toastal 3y ago
Oof. That is not an acceptable way to treat the issue. It’s one thing to say you don’t the time & cycles, but it’s another to WONTFIX it twice with a clear usability problem.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  It seems fine to me. They don't want to update it, so they close the issue. They're under no obligation (not even a moral one) to change their plans, and everyone's free to fork it to implement their own plans.
  - pxc 3y ago
    They seem interested in user feedback and genuinely curious about the use cases of others, though, as evinced by their activity here. Seems like a great time to politely make a case for one's preference, given the new attention and interest. :)
    - Vinnl 3y ago
      Even better :) Either way nothing to be mad at them about.
- ammen99 3y ago
  As the maintainer of Wayfire, I would like to say why I don't consider this a critical issue: the current system allows you to bind actions to a particular physical key. So, no matter what physical keyboard layout and actual layout in software, with the current system, you can bind the action to the desired physical key. Or do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts?
  - toastal 3y ago
    I edit in Vim using Dvorak. I always expect `ciw` to “change inner word” regardless of layout. Most shortcuts are stored in my head in this way, not by physical key placement. That said, it doesn’t bother me that xmonad sets up my keys based on the default layout, so if I switch to another to type in a non-Latin script, the WMs shortcuts stay bound to my ‘normal’ keymap as the others are only used temporarily.
  - malermeister 3y ago
    > do people actually want their keybindings to change when they change their layouts? As a colemak user, definitely. It's a super weird and confusing experience otherwise and this bug is a blocker for me checking out your (otherwise quite promising-looking) project.
    - ammen99 3y ago
      Wait, so you use both colemak and the normal qwerty layout and switch between them on the same keyboard? As a vim user, I am hugely relying on muscle memory - which is why saying that bindings should vary between layouts seems really weird, as that would make muscle memory way less effective. Then again, that is my usage ..
      - malermeister 3y ago
        It's kind of hard to explain, but I think my brain doesn't go "letter -> key on keyboard", it goes "letter -> location in keyboard layout -> key on keyboard". If the key on keyboard stays the same, even though the layout changes, it really messes with the way my brain maps from letters to muscle movements, idk if this makes sense.
notRobot 3y ago
Since the last comment in that thread says there might be some progress at the time of the 0.8.0 announcement, it might be worth asking for an update.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
phkahler 3y ago
>> It did run like a dream, though, even on my ancient potato I believe this is the compositor they're going to run on Raspberry Pi 4 and 5 with the next OS release, so it makes sense it will run on more limited hardware.

theorknfnfn 3y ago

Anyone using it daily? I'd love to hear about what makes the cool animations.. well, cool. My desktop is pretty boring right now.

bdhcuidbebe 3y ago
I rather have a boring and stable desktop than these trend of the week WM:s. Time will tell if they even stick around, and become a reasonable daily driver. In wayland-land the only one I managed to use for a couple of days without crashing was sway in 2022. Both their last release and sway-git is crashy
tombh 3y ago
I've used Wayfire everyday for a few years now. Although I'm into customisation and tinkering, (so things like Arch, Neovim, and indeed Wayfire, are to my taste), I don't like tiling window managers. I find it's like turning my living room into a workshop. A living space should have sunlight, plants and a sofa to welcome friends. In my opinion wobbly windows and other silly animations are nearer to that kind of organic aesthetic. Wayfire is a living space I can tinker with.
Congeec 3y ago
As an average user, wayfire has been pretty reliable since 0.7.5. It is just its ecosystem needs more work.

OsrsNeedsf2P 3y ago

> The purpose of workspace sets is to have a dedicated set of normal workspaces for different activities the user does on their computer. For example, I have one workspace set (containing a 2x2 workspace grid) dedicated to Wayfire, where I have Wayfire’s source code, GitHub issues, wlroots, etc. There is another workspace set dedicated to a project I am working on for university, and so on. Of course, a similar effect could be achieved with a single bigger workspace grid, but having a 5x5 workspace grid quickly becomes difficult to navigate. I've wanted this for 7 years

jcelerier 3y ago
i've been using https://github.com/infokiller/i3-workspace-groups https://github.com/infokiller/i3-workspace-groups for this to great effect for quite some time
- bitdivision 3y ago
  Thank you, this looks ideal. I've wanted a way to do this for a long time.
onli 3y ago
What blocked you from using any other WM with multiple workspaces in such a configuration?
binkHN 3y ago
Doesn't KDE's Activities handle this?
- pxc 3y ago
  I think they also want tiling behaviors, but I think you can get at least starting positions of application windows in activities and virtual desktops via KWin rules.
OJFord 3y ago
> I've wanted this for 7 years Is there a good story behind how specific that is?

dizhn 3y ago

One of the developers just responded on the github issue referecing this thread. (Also reopened the issue and removed wontfix) "After a bit of discussion on HackerNews, I got a bit better understanding of the actual problem. People don't want to just configure the keys according to a particular layout - the actual 'issue' here is that they expect the key binding changes together with the layout. Unfortunately, the 0.8.0 changes didn't make this possible to implement as a plugin. I would reconsider adding this as an option if there are enough interested people. React with a thumbs up to this comment if you are interested in having this option (though the defaults will certainly remain as they are now). Please, react only if you actually use Wayfire or would use it if it had this feature :)" https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601#issuecomment-1755302626 https://github.com/WayfireWM/wayfire/issues/1601#issuecommen...

resonious 3y ago
> the actual 'issue' here is that they expect the key binding changes together with the layout. The issue is that people expect "KEY_Q" to refer to the key that inputs a "q", no? Classic desktop-Linux-level user friendliness.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

charcircuit 3y ago

>IPC socket This IPC is a custom built IPC that has no security. This means that any program can do stuff like steal focus or drive other window manager policy if the plugin is there. There is also a plugin that exposes the ability to send key or mouse events. Applications should just use DBus instead of creating their own custom IPC protocols just because they feel like it.

bsder 3y ago
In what way is DBus better than something like Cap'n Proto? What does it cover and not cover? What other IPC/RPCs compete with it? When I start seeing C++, AUTH, and Kerberos I start getting concerned. When I don't find a Python-only module for something claimed to be "simple", I start getting very concerned: https://pypi.org/project/dbus-python/ https://pypi.org/project/dbus-python/
- charcircuit 3y ago
  >In what way is DBus better than something like Cap'n Proto? In this specific context it is less about being better and more about being the standard for apps that are part of the Linux desktop except for Wayland which has its own. There are benefits in developers all being familiar with dbus, not having to use different clients for each program you want to talk to, it is easier to secure, etc.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > There are benefits in developers all being familiar with dbus, not having to use different clients for each program you want to talk to, it is easier to secure, etc. Is it those things? People don't seem to use DBus at all outside of Linux. That would seem to imply that, by and large, it isn't those things. And the fact that someone on Linux in exactly the situation where it should be used wasn't willing to use it suggests that maybe there are significant issues.
    - charcircuit 3y ago

solarkraft 3y ago

I used Wayfire for a while a couple of years ago. When I checked it out again a few months ago it seemed fairly unmaintained. I'm happy it's alive because I find it to be a great and hugely underrated compositor with great potential.

rapnie 3y ago

Tangential. This is a cool project. But I notice how many projects similar to this one make it hard to find that out. The landing page says: > Wayfire is a wayland compositor based on wlroots. It aims to create a customizable, extendable and lightweight environment without sacrificing its appearance. Now a visitor should know what "wayland" is, and then what a "wayland compositor" is, and only then can they decide if the project is interesting. The description assumes this knowledge, but many people will not take the time to figure it out and just surf to the next interesting thing. Opportunity missed.

stonogo 3y ago
Opportunity for what? This isn't a sales environment, and I'm not sure what the benefit is of attracting users who don't know the tools they use. What is the opportunity cost of losing a user who doesn't understand the benefits of the project?
- rapnie 3y ago
  Nothing sales related. I am a FOSS contributor checking HN regularly and may think "Oh, what's this?" but not spend 2min. in that session. A simple different text could avoid me losing interest. Unless the goal is "If you don't already know about wayland (compositors) this project isn't for you".
  - pxc 3y ago
    Most F/OSS projects probably don't want users who will ignore all but highly productized presentations of their work. That's almost certainly a counter-signal of a user's likelihood to file useful bug reports, let alone contribute. But regarding this project in particular, you have lots of clues. There's a screenshot right there on the page. 'WM', short for 'window manager' is right there in the GitHub organization name. 'Compositor' is a standard term in this domain. It links to the most famous ever compositing window manager on its platform as a source of inspiration. There are basically two groups of people that actively choose a specific window management stack instead of just choosing a whole operating system: advanced or growing Linux hobbyists, and the makers of Linux distros. Both of those groups will absolutely know what Wayland is, and will be able to tell what Wayfire is. And being a member of either requires more than the scant patience you've indicated you have for projects like this. If you don't know what Wayland is and you're committed to not learning it instead of taking '2 minutes' to look it up, you're not the type to choose a window manager or configure a bespoke desktop environment.