Cairo-Dock is a pretty, light and convenient interface to your desktop, able to replace advantageously your system panel!
This repository contains an experimental fork that adds support for running on Wayland, under compositors that support the layer shell protocol. Mainly targeting Wayfire, but possibly others as well, such as labwc or KWin.
Binary packages for Ubuntu 22.04 are available here.
Note that this repository is not affiliated in any way with the Cairo-Dock project. Official releases of Cairo-Dock are available in the following repositories:
- Cairo-Dock-Core (the minimal - https://github.com/Cairo-Dock/cairo-dock-core)
- Cairo-Dock-Plug-ins (a collection of views, applets, animations, effects, etc. - https://github.com/Cairo-Dock/cairo-dock-plug-ins)
- Cairo-Dock-Plug-ins-Extras (a collection of third-party applets written in any language - https://github.com/Cairo-Dock/cairo-dock-plug-ins-extras)
Compilation:
- Please see the original guide for required dependencies. The following assumes that you are able to compile the official Git version of Cairo-Dock.
- gtk-layer-shell (recommended at least version 0.6 to support keyboard events)
- extra-cmake-modules
- wayland-scanner and Wayland development libraries
- GTK version at least 3.22 (also tested with version 3.24).
On recent Ubuntu (at least 22.04) and Debian (at least bookworm) versions, these are available by installing the following packages: libgtk-layer-shell-dev, extra-cmake-modules, libwayland-dev and libwayland-bin.
Running:
- Compositor support for the layer-shell protocol (recommended at least version 4 to allow the dock to receive keyboard events). See e.g. here and here for candidates. Also, KWin version 5.20 and later is supported.
- Optionally (but highly recommended) compositor support for the foreign-toplevel-management or the plasma-window-management protocol; this is needed for taskbar functionality.
- Optionally, if using Wayfire, this plugin for some additional functionality.
- Optionally, if using a HiDPI screen, this version of the plugins might be required for correct rendering (see below and issue #7).
Tested on Ubuntu 18.04, 20.04 and 22.04 with recent versions of Wayfire (0.7.0 and 0.8.0), labwc (0.6.5), sway and wlroots (0.16.2). Also tested with recent versions of KWin (5.20 and 5.24; only tested without the Plasma shell).
See the original guide for the steps to compile and install Cario-Dock; replace the cairo-dock-core repository with this branch. Note that plug-ins should be ABI compatible with Cairo-Dock compiled from this branch. This means that a recent version of the plug-ins from either the official repository or from here will work well.
Additional things to consider:
- The cmake configuration summary will report if gtk-layer-shell is enabled, i.e. you should see
* With gtk-layer-shell: yesin the output of cmake. If not, check that the gtk-layer-shell library is properly installed. - It will also output
* With Wayland taskbar: yesto indicate if Wayland protocols required for taskbar functionality can be built. If not, check that extra-cmake-modules and thewayland-scannerprogram are properly installed. - The
enable-gtk-layer-shellcmake option can be used to manually disable / enable layer-shell support. - The
use-new-positioning-on-x11cmake option can be used to change to some new code paths under X11 as well. This is useful to test for regressions. - To use hardware acceleration on Wayland, EGL support should be enabled and GLX support should be disabled. If this is not the case, check that the EGL libraries are available.
The WAYLAND_DISPLAY environment variable needs to be set when running on Wayland (typically wayland-1 on recent wlroots or wayland-0 on KWin). Cairo-Dock can be forced to try to use the Wayland or X11 backend with the -L and -X command line switch resepctively. Also, the -c switch can be used to disable OpenGL, and the -o switch to try to force it. These can be useful especially when running in a nested compositor.
When using systemd, starting Cairo-Dock at login can be enabled via the supplied .service file:
systemctl --user enable cairo-dock.service
What works:
- Dock positioning along a screen edge and keeping above / below and reserving space with the layer-shell protocol.
- Proper positioning of subdocks, menus and dialogs.
- Hardware acceleration with EGL.
- Taskbar (if the compositor supports the foreign-toplevel-management or plasma-window-management protocol).
- Hiding and recalling docks hidden or kept below only on Wayfire (using the wayfire-shell protocol).
Known issues:
- Subdocks disappear when an app is activated (this is a limitation of using xdg-popups; seems not the be an issue on KWin).
- Recalling a hidden dock (e.g. by the mouse hitting the screen edge) only works on Wayfire.
- Tracking visibility does not work, i.e. it is not detected if the dock overlaps with open windows (should be possible on KWin).
- Crashes in some situations which I believe are caused by a bug in wlroots. This is fixed in recent wlroots versions (0.17). For older wlroots versions (0.16), this or this patch should solve it.
- Multi-monitor support is limited: docks can be placed only on a single screen.
- Tracking virtual desktops / workspaces is not supported.
- Dialogs flicker sometimes (although this seems to happen on X11 too in some cases).
- EGL rendering under Wayland relies on an officially unsupported interface in GTK (i.e. it uses gtk_widget_set_double_buffered() which is only supported on X11); in practice it works well at least with GTK versions 3.22.30 and 3.24.33 on Wayfire and Sway.
- EGL / OpenGL does not work on older KWin versions (5.20). An error message complains about some layer-shell surfaces having a zero size set; this might be related to the above point. Run the dock with the
-cswitch. - For issues with HiDPI monitors see here; most functionality should work.
Please see the original repository and homepage. Please do not report bugs from this branch there.