Package request: Window decorator for Wayfire

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Needs clarification
Activity status
Active
Tech stack
linux
Domain
build-system, desktop

Research direction

Review the three upstream projects linked in the issue: Windecor, Pixdecor, and Xfce decor, then check their release and compatibility status with current Wayfire. Done means selecting a package scope, confirming one option meets Void's package requirements, and documenting the decision and packaging target.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

request
Package name

wayfire-xfce-decor; wayfire-plugin-windecor; wayfire-plugin-pixdecor

Package homepage

Several; see end of description

Description

As I've found, Wayfire is an excellent WC, one very lightweight that performs well (on my end) even on antiquated Pineview iGPUs without any hiccups (and most importantly WITH hardware acceleration). For this reason I believe at least one of these packages could benefit it.

"But why?"

you may ask. The reason Wayfire needs a custom decoration plugin is because its default one is VERY limited, and not capable of any proper theming (or just not looking ugly/inconsistent in the majority of cases) which tends to bug me a lot, especially because of its predecessor Compiz having such a big theme library, encasing both Emerald and Metacity themes.

What I've found

so far are a few interesting choices (with, sadly, the others such as metacity/gtk and firedecor being unmaintained and broken on modern Wf) and if all 3 are too much to include, they can be considered based on the best fitting use case.

The plugins

Windecor is the official "advanced" decorator provided by the Wayfire devs.
The pro is the absent risk of breaking, because it is developed alongside the compositor. All that's needed to be done is pull whatever build was released along with the latest stable Wf and package it.
The con is purely limitations. For example, windecor has yet to support rounded corners (according to the gitlab page)

Pixdecor is an alternative that's, of course, not an official plugin, but very promising nonetheless. It provides rounded corners, anti-aliasing, animated effects (eg. hover animations for window buttons?) shadows etc.

Xfce decor is another interesting alternative.
Why: Standardized theming. It uses the same themes xfwm4 uses (Void's default, too, thanks to Xfce), which means the large collection of themes already existing will continue to be usable as the years go on.
Why not: Must consider that this means whatever limitation Xfwm decorations may have, this will have too. Additionally, I don't know if this project is gonna last. (similarly to what happened to firedecor and metacity, now broken on modern Wf and wlroots versions)

I await to hear opinions. If someone here has used one of these, or uses Wayfire, I kindly ask for an opinion. Thanks

Windecor: https://gitlab.com/wayfireplugins/windecor
Pix decor: https://github.com/soreau/pixdecor
Xfce decor: https://github.com/jgmdev/wayfire-xfce-decor

Does the requested package meet the package requirements?

Compiled

Is the requested package released?

Yes

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