Hello, yesterday I officially released Louvre v1.0.0, a C++ library designed for building Wayland compositors with a primary focus on ease of development. It provides a default method for handling protocols, input events, and rendering, which you can selectively and progressively override as required, allowing you to see a functional compositor from day 1.

It supports multi-GPU setups, multi-session (TTY switching), and offers various rendering options, including a scene and view system that automatically repaints only the damaged (changing) regions during a frame. Because it uses multiple threads, it can maintain a high FPS rate with v-sync enabled when rendering complex scenarios. In contrast, single-threaded compositors often experience a rapid drop in FPS, for example, from 60 to 30 fps, due to “dead times” while waiting for a screen vblank, leading to the skipping of frames.

The library is freely available, open source, thoroughly documented, includes examples, and features a detailed tutorial.

You can find it here: https://github.com/CuarzoSoftware/Louvre

I hope it proves useful for you. If you decide to use it and encounter any doubts or wish to contribute to its development, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Greetings!

  • @[email protected]
    11•1 year ago

    There’s desperate need to a library that’s simpler to use than wlroots or smithay - but unless it supports more protocols (later shell, gamma control, session lock), I don’t think this is a real a alternative yet.

    • @ehopperdietzelOP
      12•1 year ago

      I completely agree. I invest time in implementing protocols within the library, allowing it to handle many tasks autonomously, thus relieving developers from manually wiring everything themselves—without compromising flexibility oc. Regarding “later shell,” did you mean “layer shell”? Developers can certainly still implement protocols not included with Louvre on their own, but that’s not quite the intended approach.

    • insomniac_lemon
      1•1 year ago

      I was thinking similar, though I’m also still on X with nVidia and XFCE and am in a weird way* with programming.

      I have my own custom XFWM theme that is really minimal (12px title with 8px tall buttons with some being wider to compensate, somewhat outdated example) and I’d like to expand upon it (floating titles, inset window buttons, dynamic button width, media integration) but I’ve looked at examples and don’t understand enough to even get just a rectangle for a titlebar (though X I assume for something basic, X would probably still be the easiest).

      *= the only language that I’m interested in (due to it being easy in a style I like while still having performance/capability/flexibility etc) is not popular, and worse is I have lost a bit of hope/confidence in its future (as well as its bus factor reducing further because the person who made the package manager+installer and a book walked away) so I still haven’t really done much with it.