Release message 0.11.0

[trigg]

I'm awful at writing, so I shall post here, and edit as I go, and fully appreciate no one is required to help me but I'll take all the help I can get

[trigg]

Wf-Shell 0.11.0

G'day! Today we are announcing the release of wf-shell 0.11.0 .

There has been a lot of change since our last release, most notably our rework to use GTK4. While the port to GTK4 was a large portion of this release, it is by no means the entire update.

Lock screen

We have added a lock screen in the form of our newly minted wf-locker. It has password unlock (via PAM), fingerprint unlock (via fprintd) and PIN unlock. Alongside unlock methods it has weather, media player integration, clock and network status. You can try it out with wf-locker --now ! #324

Documentation here

Screen share

We now ship a window-picker for streaming! Whenever any app requests a streamed window or screen the user is presented with a picker to choose which is streamed. This requires @soreau's copy-capture plugin and XDPW (likely to be in your package manager!) to do the actual streaming. #396

Documentation here

Panel - Mixer

A full audio mixer widget, allowing selection of different inputs, outputs, and per app volumes. #307

Panel - Weather

Utilising the same service as wf-locker we now have a panel widget to show local weather! #329

Dock & Panel - More versatile hotspots

Panel and dock now can auto-show an auto-hidden panel or dock by approaching from the opposing edge of an adjacent display

Panel - Language layout switcher

When used on Wayfire, allow the user to see the current keyboard layout and cycle between them #301

Panel - Workspace switcher

Quick visualisation and switching of workspaces. #339

Dock - Multiple layers

Open windows can now be shown in multiple rows

Panel - Brightness control

A widget to change the backlight or brightness of displays. Supports laptop and tablet screens. Also supports desktop monitors provided the support is compiled in #327

Panel - Live window previews

Window list now optionally can show live previews of windows on mouse-over. Required @soreau's copy-capture #483

Background - Many new background images

We collected the very best artworks from our volunteers and community. We held a contest to choose a new background image, and when @EliteAMDGamer won the contest they graciously allowed others to share the spotlight! So we now have a default directory of images which are cycled through. Naturally users may choose their own preference. #383

Panel - Opt-in displays

Added a display allow-list. By default uses '*' to allow any and all plugged in displays, but can be used to allow the panel to only show for specific displays #356

Panel - Expanded network management

Allows switching between Wireless Access Points, enabling or disabling specific devices and connecting to known VPNs. #333

Panel - Gesture Handling

We have made the panel much more accessible to touch device users by adding alternative actions to long-press on touch devices, which map to right-click or middle-click for traditional mouse user. #321

Credits

This milestone would not have been possible without the relentless support of the community. First I'd like to thank @ammen99 for giving me the chance to help, for his foundation upon which we've built and his support every time I've asked. I'd like to thank @soreau for always having time to fix up around me and bringing so many good ideas to fruition. Thanks to @AKArien for their vision for new features and so much hard work. Thanks all of you especially for so often turning my passing comments into pull requests before I've fully finished the thought.

Questions, Building & Debugging

As always, if you need to ask for help or support feel free to open a bug report here, or talk to us in https://matrix.to/#/#wf-shell:matrix.org

[AKArien]

Aw, i’m honored to be cited ! i will say as per usual, that i am only glad to be around :)

On the release message, i will say that i think it would be clearer to invert the feature - component, so, « panel - opt-in displays ».

I would also find it good to leave (less detailed) changelog of every new option for users that already have a config to look over what new features are available for them to use and see if any interest them, although it would probably make the release message too long, so i’m not sure how to share that.

[jpalus]

Do you plan to upload release tarballs like for older versions?