Nehir 0.5.0 — Onboarding, Multi-Monitor Fixes, Layout Improvements, and Configuration Upgrades

[Guria]

Nehir 0.5.0 introduces major improvements to onboarding, configuration management, multi-monitor support, and overall usability.

Help test before release

0.5.0 is currently available as a release candidate. If you're interested in helping validate the release before it becomes stable, please give it a try and report any issues you encounter.

brew install --cask guria/tap/nehir@rc

Feedback from RC users is especially valuable for catching upgrade issues, multi-monitor edge cases, and configuration migration problems before the final release.

Highlights

Better first-run and upgrade experience

Getting started with Nehir is now much easier.

• New onboarding experience for first-time users
• New What's New screen after upgrades
• Config drift detection and migration assistance

Major multi-monitor improvements

A significant portion of this release focused on fixing multi-monitor edge cases and improving reliability.

Notable fixes include:

• Fixed mouse warping issues when Nehir was not the active application
• Fixed workspaces remaining assigned to disconnected monitors
• Improved workspace and monitor state synchronization
• Improved focus behavior across displays
• Improved monitor-specific layout configuration

If you use Nehir with multiple displays, 0.5.0 should feel noticeably more reliable than previous releases.

More flexible layouts

• Per-monitor spacing overrides
• Per-monitor lone window behavior
• Improved viewport navigation
• Better handling of proportional column layouts
• More predictable scrolling and reveal behavior

Settings overhaul

The Settings window has been reorganized and simplified.

Highlights include:

• Better grouping of behavior and layout settings
• Improved hotkey management
• Improved app rule editing
• Easier access to common actions and tools

New commands

New commands include:

• openSettings
• Toggle commands for focus behavior, cursor movement, borders, IPC, and display sleep prevention

Commands are now exposed more consistently across hotkeys, the command palette, IPC, and nehirctl.

Stability improvements

Beyond the visible features, 0.5.0 includes a large number of bug fixes, internal refactors, and reliability improvements across workspace management, focus handling, layout updates, and configuration management.

Breaking Changes

Config key rename

maxVisibleColumns      -> balancedColumnCount
niriMaxVisibleColumns  -> niriBalancedColumnCount

The old keys are no longer recognized and must be updated manually.

Lone Window configuration

The previous aspect-ratio-based configuration has been replaced.

singleWindowAspectRatio
niriSingleWindowAspectRatio

have been replaced by:

loneWindowPolicy
loneWindowMaxWidth

Upgrading

Before upgrading:

1. Back up your configuration.
2. Update renamed configuration keys.
3. Review Lone Window settings if you previously used singleWindowAspectRatio.
4. Launch Nehir and follow any migration prompts.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who reported bugs, tested release candidates, and shared feedback during the 0.5.0 cycle. Your reports directly contributed to many of the fixes included in this release.

[Paranjayy]

• GuriaFS on X: "@paranjaydotdev @maria_rcks While OmniWM took pause for Rust rewrite I made my own opinionated fork and invested a lot of efforts to make it more stable. Would appreciate the feedback. https://t.co/1h5Sy3WYkZ" / X
  https://x.com/GuriaFS/status/2066577498100416555

• I got to know from twitter where @Guria replied in my comment and I would test it out based of my dotfiles (I use karabiner to hack the omniwm/hiro's shortcuts it are damn cool like I use rcmd/ropt to avoid left cmd/opt to be occupied)

• https://github.com/Paranjayy/dotfiles

• I created 1 ghost pr(I was going to fix the top most issue and add few more features but then life happened I got busy and in the vacation there was family travel plan so I wasn't able to complete it) and 1 pr by mistake there

• I would review nehir and give feedback about it

• forgot to mention but in twitter ig your dm is closed to avoid spam only those who you follow gets dm ig

• sorry for huge ass comment lol!

issues I created in omniwm

• [Bug]popup in any app causes the app to float & [feature request]keyboard shortcut(right/left side cmd/opt) & workspace snapshot · Issue #306 · BarutSRB/Hiro
  [Bug]popup in any app causes the app to float & [feature request]keyboard shortcut(right/left side cmd/opt) & workspace snapshot BarutSRB/OmniWM#306

• [feature] Would love to have an option to hide the application icons from the bar · Issue #281 · BarutSRB/Hiro
  [feature] Would love to have an option to hide the application icons from the bar BarutSRB/OmniWM#281

• Floating Windows Not Showing in Workspace Bar · Issue #200 · BarutSRB/Hiro
  Floating Windows Not Showing in Workspace Bar BarutSRB/OmniWM#200

omniwm pr

• fix(rules): resolve popup-induced floating bug (#306) by Paranjayy · Pull Request #318 · BarutSRB/Hiro
  fix(rules): resolve popup-induced floating bug (#306) BarutSRB/OmniWM#318

[Paranjayy]

my bad instead of paragraph I like to write in bullet points to avoid chaos in paragraph apologies!! & any plans for quake terminal and I am rn trying to port my settings to nehir

[Guria]

I would also discourage from submitting PRs at this stage. Clear description of the issue, expectation and traces are preferred way for contribution.

[Paranjayy]

Yeah, I am not creating a PR right now. I just commented on my feedback on previous comment, and I never got this feedback so far about my bullet points issue apologies for bothering you & I am a 20-year-old student developer learning to code with Vibe Code, and in general, too. Also, apologies for the lack of punctuation! Is there any script to migrate an OmniWM config to Nehir?

[Guria]

I’m sorry, but Quick Terminal is currently not planned to come back.

I had issues where processes running inside Quick Terminal could hang the whole WM.

#24 has some recipes for improving Ghostty’s built-in quick terminal.

[Guria]

Is there any script to migrate an OmniWM config to Nehir?

No. I don’t think it’s worth maintaining, as it would unnecessarily bloat the codebase, and not everything can be mapped directly.

You can provide your OmniWM config and the hotkeys.toml generated by Nehir to any AI tool and ask it to migrate the config for you. It is a one-off task that is easier to handle on your side.

[Guria]

@yougotwill previously you shared your opinion on Single Window Ratio None (Fill) and Visible Columns expected behaviour in OmniWM.

Can you please try new layout options introduced in Nehir 0.5.0-rc, and share your thoughts if this clicks for you.

[yougotwill]

Hi @Guria, I gave it a go. To confirm we are discussing how a single window is full width and then if we open more window that it sticks to the number of columns set? I confirmed Nehir does this well! I've migrated to paneru cause I missed displays having separate spaces but I wish you good luck with your fork!

[Guria]

Great thanks. Where can I check for separate spaces for display?
I am open for exploration here, as I understand there is more ways it can be organised.
Glad that you found solution that works for you.

[yougotwill]

System Settings > Desktop & Dock > Mission Control > Displays have separate Spaces

The reason I prefer it is because then I have the menu bar and dock on each display instead of only on the main one.

[Guria]

@yougotwill Thanks again. I might miss something obvious, but I didn't noticed what is wrong when Displays have separate Spaces is enabled. Can you help me understand what is the issue stands with this configuration and Nehir.