apbryan / labwc

Openbox alternative for Wayland

labwc

• 1. What is this?
• 2. Build
• 3. Install
• 4. Configure
• 5. Run
• 6. Integrate
• 7. Roadmap
• 8. Contribute

1. What is this?

Labwc stands for Lab Wayland Compositor, with lab indicating a sense of experimentation and treading new ground.

It is a wlroots-based stacking compositor aiming to be light-weight and independent, with a focus on simply stacking windows well and rendering some window decorations. It relies on clients for wall-paper, panels, screenshots, and so on to create a full desktop environment.

Labwc tries to stay in keeping with wlroots and sway in terms of general approach and coding style.

In order to avoid re-inventing configuration & theme syntax, openbox-3.4 specification is used. This does not mean that labwc is an openbox clone but rather that configuration files will look and feel familiar.

video link	date	content
Video (1:10)	05-Aug-2021	window gymnastics, theming and waybar
Video (3:42)	25-Feb-2021	setting background and themes; xwayland/xdg-shell windows

So far, labwc supports the following:

• Config files (rc.xml, autostart, environment)
• Theme files and xbm icons
• Damage tracking to reduce CPU usage
• A basic root-menu (configured with menu.xml)
• HiDPI
• wlr-output-management protocol
• layer-shell protocol
• foreign-toplevel protocol (e.g. to integrate with panels and bars)
• Optionally xwayland

2. Build

meson build/
ninja -C build/

Dependencies include:

• meson, ninja, gcc/clang
• wlroots (master)
• wayland (>=1.19)
• wayland-protocols
• libinput (>=1.14)
• libxml2
• cairo, pango, glib-2.0
• xkbcommon
• xwayland, xcb (optional)

Disable xwayland with meson -Dxwayland=disabled build/

For further details see wiki/Build.

3. Install

See wiki/Install.

4. Configure

Labwc uses the files listed below for configuration and theming.

file	user over-ride location	man page
rc.xml	~/.config/labwc/	labwc-config(5), labwc-actions(5)
menu.xml	~/.config/labwc/	labwc-menu(5)
autostart	~/.config/labwc/	labwc(1)
environment	~/.config/labwc/	labwc-environment(5)
themerc	~/.local/share/themes/<theme-name>/openbox-3/	labwc-theme(5)

The example rc.xml has been kept simple. For all options and default values, see rc.xml.all

Configuration and theme files are re-loaded on receiving SIGHUP (e.g. killall -SIGHUP labwc)

For keyboard settings, see environment and xkeyboard-config(7)

For themes, search the internet for "openbox themes" and place them in ~/.local/share/themes/. Some good starting points include:

• https://github.com/addy-dclxvi/openbox-theme-collections
• https://github.com/the-zero885/Lubuntu-Arc-Round-Openbox-Theme
• https://bitbucket.org/archlabslinux/themes/
• https://github.com/BunsenLabs/bunsen-themes

5. Run

./build/labwc [-s <command>]

Click on the background to launch a menu.

If you have not created an rc.xml config file, default binds will be:

combination	action
alt-tab	activate next window
alt-escape	exit
super-return	alacritty
alt-F3	bemenu
alt-F4	close window
super-a	toggle maximize
alt-mouse-left	move window
alt-mouse-right	resize window
alt-arrow	move window to edge

6. Integrate

Suggested apps to use with labwc:

• Screen shooter: grim
• Screen recorder: wf-recorder
• Background image: swaybg
• Panel: waybar
• Launchers: bemenu, fuzzel, wofi
• Output managers: kanshi, wlr-randr
• Screen locker: swaylock

7. Roadmap

A lot of emphasis is put on code simplicy when considering features.

The main development effort if focused on producing a solid foundation for a stacking compositor rather than adding configuration and theming options.

See acceptance criteria for details.

High-level summary of items which are not inteded to be implemented:

• Icons (except window buttons)
• Animations
• Gradients for decoration and menus
• Any theme option not required to reasonably render common themes (it's amazing how few options are actually required).

8. Contribute

Let's try to stick to this coding style