falktx @falktx@mastodon.falktx.com

Yeah I really hate client-side decorations 😡

From top to bottom:

1. Firefox is able to follow Gnome desktop settings, as it uses Gtk on the lower level 👏

2. Konsole being KDE and based on Qt is not Gtk related, just makes assumptions on what decorations should be used

3. Carla being Qt behaves the same

4. Steam does its own thing, but also assumes what decorations should be used

I really thought Qt&KDE apps would behave better 😔

PS: Yes I prefer my window buttons on the left side

I mean, the app can request the compositor to have "server-side decorations" but this is treated as optional protocol.
See https://wayland.app/protocols/xdg-decoration-unstable-v1

It is implemented on all major desktops except Gnome 😭

So now all apps need to implement their own decoration, user resizing, etc feels very backwards and wasteful.

The way some compositors implement some features and some not is a bit annoying, but the main features are well supported overall.

Now to get DPF to support wayland... 😁

2 / 2

After a few days writing code and running tests directly with wayland APIs... I like it! 👏

It is quite different from X11, but so is doing Windowing and events on macOS and Windows. So it is kinda like another platform altogether.

The way of dealing with "protocols" feels a little weird at first, but I can really appreciate the extensibility provided and a centralized place for them.

So far there is only 1 thing I hate - client-side decorations.

1/2

actually the same code works on Qt6.9, so maybe nothing else needed...?

Got wayland subsurface-as-plugin-UI now working for Qt6 hosts now too!

Though because it needs to access private APIs the code looks a bit "special" 😆
But I think it should be possible to expand the supported Qt versions by adding a couple of these...
What do you think, too nasty?

https://github.com/falkTX/wayland-audio-plugin-test/blob/ce3120ba52a1696f5f323948922e281f113cc92b/qt6-host.cpp#L40

the jalv gtk3 code is quite complex, I think it might be easier for me to add a little support in carla instead.

but really wish getting some wayland related pointers/data out of Qt was a bit easier..
without it I cannot do the fancy "keep plugin UI on top of carla" thing under wayland

embedding custom wayland UI stuff on top of gtk3 and gtk4 based applications works! 🎉

the gtk APIs to get down to the wayland surface are a bit awkward, but at least its accessible.
I tried the same with Qt6 and couldn't find a way to have it return the underlying wl_surface pointer. 🤷

I got an LV2 plugin UI with this setup working, but no hosts to try it out against.
Modifying jalv.gtk3 is likely the easiest path... 🤔

WIP test code dump at https://github.com/falkTX/wayland-audio-plugin-test

doing some experiments with wayland and audio plugin UIs...
I have seen a proposal for that relies on a lot of proxy setup, but really don't like it.

so I did some tests with subsurfaces, and it seems very promising.
I have a big host window providing its surface to a "plugin" window for which it creates a subsurface to draw on.
Then the host can take control over subsurface for positioning, z-index, etc

Event input works with this approach too.

boring screenshot: grey = host, yellow = plugin

my work system surely likes to notify me of updates...

Related to this, I see a lot of JUCE based projects that seem nice in principle but if the author has not updated between versions (say using older JUCE6) it becomes difficult to package and argue in their favour.

JUCE breaks their API quite a lot, even between minor versions. So projects that rely on older versions don't have e.g. fixes for high-dpi screen support or linux vst3.

Updating them to new JUCE versions can be quite complex sometimes.

Not good prospective for long-tern support...

Checking on the status of opensource audio apps and plugins (previously known to me) is quite the sad sight, quite a lot of them have been abandoned 😔

I am thinking of tagging anything that:
1. has no stable release in 10 years
AND
2. has no single dev commit/change in 5 years
as "abandoned".
Alternatively if the project owner publicly states it is no longer maintained.

The amount of projects that fit into this criteria is not small. And I feel 10 & 5 year thing is quite generous..

KXStudio June 2025 project update
https://kx.studio/News/?action=view&url=kxstudio-project-update-june-2025

Very short this time, writing these always takes me way too long, so I will try to go with this more formal format for the moment and see how it goes...

Your favorite audio mastering plugin has a new release! 🎉
Mostly just keeping things updated with DPF (the plugin framework) but it now also allows to persistently save custom theme changes. Hint: click the master_me logo on the top-right to bring up the "theme editor".

https://github.com/trummerschlunk/master_me/releases/tag/1.3.0

My big commit of the day: https://github.com/wineasio/wineasio/commit/8d0d748efd4db6fed0e97b59db0bb21210fca367

Remove ASIO dependency from WineASIO 😱

It was only a few definitions, and since the core codebase was unchanged for so long we can safely replace a few structs with API-incompatible but ABI-compatible variants.

Seems to work just as before

My biggest kernel patch so far: https://github.com/Darkglass-Electronics/radxa-kernel/commit/cc8f13b0504c290e3cb83a7334e9f1d4e3809c4e

Changing the Linux USB audio gadget to use a very-fast mmap vs the old virtual ALSA card approach, plus also sharing 1 clock for both playback and capture (default implementation uses 1 for playback and 1 for capture, which makes them appear as separate devices - very ugly)

Culmination of 1 month of work, but due to how hacky it is I will have to maintain it forever.
But it's cool, gives the Darkglass Anagram unit a more unique feel!