Not yet, I mean, XWayland rootful mode has always been supported. But in this mode, all X application windows are rendered within a single Wayland window, enabling functionalities such as running an entire X Desktop Environment within the compositor. However, what hasn’t been implemented yet is the rootless mode. In rootless mode, each X window is treated as a separate Wayland window, enabling better integration with the compositor.
In my view, it would be better to say on the GitHub page that Louvre lacks support for “XWayland Rootless Mode” or “supports XWayland only in rootful mode” rather than lacking support for XWayland completely.
From reading of the GitHub page, my understanding was that XWayland would not work at all. This made the idea of using Louvre at this point sound totally impractical and positioned it as purely a toy in my mind. It also made me question technically why it would not work. I was already familiar with the idea of rootful vs rootless mode but it would never have occurred to me that this is what you meant.
When I read the new release notes I asked myself “how can XWayland not be a top priority?” but your explanation makes perfect sense. I can completely respect focussing on making Louvre as a fully capable Wayland compositor first before worrying about deeper X11 integration. Rootful mode may be less elegant but at least needing to use an X application is no longer a show-stopper.
I think I saw in a roadmap that XWayland support was prioritized as “hopefully never” which made it seem like a purposeful, ideological boycott. With your explanation here, that also makes a lot more sense and comes across as less off-putting and perhaps just more optimistic for how quickly pure Wayland will suffice. I don’t imagine you would block merging the contribution if somebody else did the X11 work.
You’re right, thank you for your comment. Being so involved in this sometimes makes me forget that not everyone knows things like that. As you rightly pointed out, my current focus is on addressing everything related to Wayland first. Following that, I intend to incorporate rootless XWayland support. When I mentioned “hopefully never,” it was simply a touch of sarcasm.
Do you mean Desktop Environment? If so, the screenshot is from one of the library’s example compositors named louvre-views. You can find more details about it here.
Release announcements like this one could benefit from a one line description of what your software actually is or does for those not familiar with it. And yes, I know that the GitHub Readme has one but I mean in the announcement directly.
It is easy to forget if you are part of the project since you obviously hear the project name dozens of times every week. I have fallen into that same trap myself with software I developed and/or use a lot.
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