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LavaLauncher 1.6 Released As A Simple Dock/Launcher For Wayland

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  • LavaLauncher 1.6 Released As A Simple Dock/Launcher For Wayland

    Phoronix: LavaLauncher 1.6 Released As A Simple Dock/Launcher For Wayland

    If you have been looking for a simple dock/launcher that natively supports Wayland, LavaLauncher 1.6 is available as one such solution...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    The ability to just use an icon and a command is one I wish more launchers/docks would allow.

    I'll make a note of this for when I'm forced to switch to Wayland...

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    • #3
      Any shell can do that. Its just an ui to create a desktop file in place and add it to where ever you want it.

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      • #4
        Originally posted by Thaodan View Post
        Any shell can do that. Its just an ui to create a desktop file in place and add it to where ever you want it.
        In fact, that's not true anymore: under Wayland, a program can't specify where a window is placed, neither whether it stays "on top" nor "at the bottom", both important things for elements like bars, docks and desktop icons. That's why doing these kind of things in Wayland usually require collaboration from the compositor, and that's why I suspect that this dock has been tested only in tiled window managers. But under Gnome Shell or KDE I doubt it would work as expected (I mean: to be able to keep it in an specific side of the screen, and always on-top).
        Last edited by rastersoft; 18 February 2020, 07:15 AM.

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        • #5
          Originally posted by rastersoft View Post

          But under Gnome Shell or KDE I doubt it would work as expected
          Isn't it already possible? Latte Dock works on KDE Wayland session. As for GNOME, isn't Desktop Icons NG extension do similar thing to make window with icons stay below everything?

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          • #6
            Originally posted by dragon321 View Post
            Isn't it already possible? Latte Dock works on KDE Wayland session. As for GNOME, isn't Desktop Icons NG extension do similar thing to make window with icons stay below everything?
            Well, in fact I am the creator of Desktop Icons NG :-) And it uses a trick to achieve that: the desktop icons themselves are created by an standard application, but if it is run alone in Wayland, it will behave as any other application because it can't set the window position or keep it below everything. That kind of "superpowers" are given thanks to a little Gnome Shell extension, which launches the desktop icons application and detects when each window (one for each physical monitor) is created, moving them to the right place. Also, every time they are raised, it sends them again to the bottom. Since the extension runs from inside the compositor, it can do that kind of things.

            Also, currently I have two little patches waiting to be added to Mutter to simplify all this process, because currently, to avoid breaking the security model in Wayland, I have to do a quite convoluted process to guarantee that an specific window really belongs to desktop icons application, and ensure that no rogue application can take advantage of it. I really hope that they could do it for Gnome 3.36.0.

            About Latte dock, I'm not sure, but reading the documentation in the github repository, it seems that it is a plasmoid, so I presume that it also runs from inside the compositor and using its own API, so it makes sense that it can do those kind of things.
            Last edited by rastersoft; 18 February 2020, 08:36 AM.

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            • #7
              Nice! I've been looking something like this. As a sway user I rejoice because the developer has been testing this on sway. Oh and also Wayfire. I've been testing/running Wayfire too.

              This is awesome.

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              • #8
                Originally posted by rastersoft View Post

                In fact, that's not true anymore: under Wayland, a program can't specify where a window is placed, neither whether it stays "on top" nor "at the bottom", both important things for elements like bars, docks and desktop icons. That's why doing these kind of things in Wayland usually require collaboration from the compositor, and that's why I suspect that this dock has been tested only in tiled window managers. But under Gnome Shell or KDE I doubt it would work as expected (I mean: to be able to keep it in an specific side of the screen, and always on-top).
                This can be done with the layer shell wayland protocol that is supported by all major Wayland compositors, KDE, Wlroots, Mir but not Gnome of course as that's NIH.

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                • #9
                  Originally posted by Pajn View Post
                  This can be done with the layer shell wayland protocol that is supported by all major Wayland compositors, KDE, Wlroots, Mir but not Gnome of course as that's NIH.
                  Funny, didn't know about this. Thanks for the tip. I tested now LavaLauncher under Gnome Shell and yes, it doesn't work, but this can explain how it works with other compositors.

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Pajn View Post
                    This can be done with the layer shell wayland protocol that is supported by all major Wayland compositors, KDE, Wlroots, Mir but not Gnome of course as that's NIH.
                    Yeh GNOME doesn't support the xdg shell protocol or anything.

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