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| author | srdusr <[email protected]> | 2026-06-01 23:18:00 +0200 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | srdusr <[email protected]> | 2026-06-01 23:18:00 +0200 |
| commit | 3ef784e09f6b81b767837e048d691c4e63528e55 (patch) | |
| tree | 0f96600eff4028d93f12764a79c02dea69434bc8 /docs/DEFAULTS.md | |
| parent | 27daed83230eaefd0f41461cad20bbed7d1ad575 (diff) | |
| download | srdwm-3ef784e09f6b81b767837e048d691c4e63528e55.tar.gz srdwm-3ef784e09f6b81b767837e048d691c4e63528e55.zip | |
Let negotiating clients be forced to server-side decoration, and document the GTK half
Asked to research how KDE and GNOME make decorations consistent, after being
told too quickly that srdwm could only control its own titlebar.
Measured against a nested srdwm, one client at a time: Qt/KDE creates a
decoration object and asks for server-side; winit creates one and asks for
CLIENT-side; GTK never creates one at all. The xdg-decoration spec says the
compositor "can decide not to use the client's mode and enforce a different
mode instead" and that the client "must obey" - so the first two are
srdwm's to decide, and it had simply been deferring. The same spec closes
the door on the third: a client that does not negotiate continues to
self-decorate, and GTK is not having the conversation.
New theme.decorations.force_server_side, default off, overrides the client's
requested mode. Verified: with it off Alacritty draws its own content to the
window's top edge, with it on the same window gets srdwm's titlebar --
(0,0,0) versus (46,52,64) sampled at three rows. Off by default because it
cannot move a GTK button and can stack srdwm's titlebar on a client that
draws its own regardless, which is the Firefox case already recorded here.
The GTK half needs no compositor code, only the desktop setting GTK actually
reads - xdg-desktop-portal's org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout
for GTK4, gtk-decoration-layout for GTK3. This machine was serving
"close,minimize,maximize:" (left) while srdwm's own button_side was right,
which is the entire mismatch. Documented in DEFAULTS.md with the mapping
from button_side to layout string, and noted that this is exactly what
kde-gtk-config does for KWin.
525 tests pass, clippy clean.
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/DEFAULTS.md')
| -rw-r--r-- | docs/DEFAULTS.md | 74 |
1 files changed, 74 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/DEFAULTS.md b/docs/DEFAULTS.md index daa65d8..fd10861 100644 --- a/docs/DEFAULTS.md +++ b/docs/DEFAULTS.md @@ -971,3 +971,77 @@ is not intercepted until the next startup. Combos are reported in canonical order (`Ctrl+Mod4+l`), which is what the compositor matches a real keypress against - not necessarily how the combo was written in the config. + +## Making client-side decorated apps match srdwm's titlebar + +A window's chrome is drawn by one of two parties, and which one is decided +by the `xdg-decoration` protocol. Three behaviours were measured directly +against a nested srdwm, not assumed: + +| toolkit | creates a decoration object | asks for | +|---|---|---| +| Qt / KDE (Dolphin) | yes | server-side | +| winit (Alacritty) | yes | **client-side** | +| GTK 3 / GTK 4 (Nemo) | **no, never** | - | + +That table is the whole problem. The protocol says "the compositor can +decide not to use the client's mode and enforce a different mode instead", +and "the specified mode must be obeyed by the client" - so the first two +rows are srdwm's to control. But it also says "if compositor and client do +not negotiate the use of a server-side decoration ... clients continue to +self-decorate as they see fit", and GTK never negotiates at all. No +compositor setting can reach a GTK window's buttons, because GTK is not +having the conversation. + +### For toolkits that negotiate: force server-side + +```lua +srd.set("theme.decorations.force_server_side", true) +``` + +Off by default. It makes every negotiating client take srdwm's titlebar, +including one that asked for client-side. Verified: with it off, Alacritty +draws its own content straight to the window's top edge; with it on, the +same window gets srdwm's titlebar band. + +The reason it is not the default is that it cannot help the case it looks +like it should, and can hurt: a client that draws its own chrome regardless +of what it negotiated (Firefox, historically) ends up with srdwm's titlebar +stacked on top of its own. Use `rules.lua`'s `decorated = false` for those. + +### For GTK: set the desktop's button layout + +GTK reads its button layout from the desktop, not from the compositor. GTK 4 +on Wayland reads it from `xdg-desktop-portal` +(`org.freedesktop.portal.Settings`, key `org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences` +`button-layout`); GTK 3 reads the `gtk-decoration-layout` GtkSettings +property. Both resolve to the same string on a normal setup. + +```sh +gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout ':minimize,maximize,close' +``` + +The colon separates the left corner from the right, so a leading colon puts +every button on the right. Match it to srdwm's own `button_side`: + +| srdwm `button_side` | button-layout | +|---|---| +| `"right"` (default) | `:minimize,maximize,close` | +| `"left"` | `close,minimize,maximize:` | + +This is exactly how KDE does it - `kde-gtk-config` exists to write GTK's +setting to match KWin's own decoration. The value persists in dconf, so it +survives a reboot without any startup script. + +Verified with a screenshot A/B on one Nemo window, changing only this +setting: buttons moved from x=25/49/73 (left) to x=817/841/865 (right), +landing in the same place and the same order as srdwm's own titlebar buttons +directly above them. + +### What still cannot match + +The button *style*. srdwm's `button_style` draws srdwm's own titlebar; a +GTK app draws its buttons with its GTK theme. Position and order can be made +identical, as above; whether they are flat glyphs or coloured dots is the +GTK theme's decision. On WhiteSur-Dark they are macOS-style dots by design. +Changing that means changing the GTK theme. |