Where Nehir stands, and why I went quiet

[Guria]

I owe you an apology for the silence. The last build was 0.6.0-rc.44 on August 13, and after late August I stopped replying here. My day job needed all of my time, and I had nothing left for Nehir. Several issues and pull requests were left without an answer, including contributions people put real work into. In #30 I promised that every issue and PR would be reviewed and answered. I didn't keep that promise, and I'm sorry.

I'll go back through the issues and pull requests that went unanswered and check which ones still apply and could land in OmniWM. If you opened one, please tell me there whether you still want it in Nehir or you're happy to move to OmniWM.

Why Nehir exists

At the end of May, OmniWM was archived and its future was unclear. Soon after, its author announced a Rust rewrite under a new name. I used OmniWM every day, so I forked it to keep the Niri-style workflow for myself and for anyone who wanted the same thing.

I think Nehir proved its point. Between May 30 and August 13 it shipped 82 builds, 8 of them stable, merged 137 pull requests and closed 26 of the 42 issues filed in that time. A narrower, Niri-focused fork could exist and keep moving. Running it was fun. It also took far more time and energy than I expected.

Thank you to everyone who used Nehir. Thanks to @syepes, @lamdor and @bhedavivek for pull requests, and to everyone who reported bugs, shared traces, tested release candidates and joined the discussions: @392781 @5183nischal @aalexei @agenttank @Alan-TheGentleman @alper @amirrezasalimi @axburgess-godaddy @bhupesh-sf @charmbyte @ChedRed @cunninghamcard-bit @dagrlx @etrigan63 @flschulz @gerardomtz26 @incanus @jr-b @lokize @nikhilmaddirala @ocavue @Paranjayy @regionativo @sebb3 @shadww @stefanpinterBE @VyLowry7337 @yougotwill

OmniWM today

OmniWM got a second wind, and Nehir played a small part in it.

Barut and I had some friction, mostly from miscommunication, and we worked it out. OmniWM's README lists Nehir as a related fork, and the 0.7.3 release notes credit ideas from Nehir. I'm now a member of the OmniNull organization and contribute directly. So far that's the GitHub Actions release pipeline, daily signed canary builds, Niri edge overscroll, a Settings tabs fix, and a workspace bar fix ported straight from Nehir.

Features now flow in both directions, as I hoped in #30. Nehir picked up fixes and ideas from OmniWM all along, including the raw trackpad gesture handling and the focus lock modifier. Some things Nehir did first now exist in OmniWM too, such as Focus Previous across workspaces and the workspace bar context menus.

Using OmniWM today, I find it far more polished. It lives in the OmniNull organization, has its own website, ships regular releases with 0.8.0 out on November 7, has a daily canary channel, and takes outside contributions. Most of what made me run a fork is gone, and I'm happy with upstream again. I'll keep bringing things that worked in Nehir back to OmniWM.

What happens to Nehir

I don't know yet.

OmniWM keeps going as an all-in-one tool: Niri scrolling and Dwindle layouts, a Ghostty quake terminal, clipboard history in the command palette, OmniShell and more. That's a valid direction, and it isn't the narrow Niri-only scope Nehir chose. If enough people want that narrower scope, Nehir can get a second chance too.

Some differences are practical. OmniWM now requires Input Monitoring and "Displays have separate Spaces" turned on. Nehir asks for neither.

So I need to hear from you. If you still use Nehir, reply here and tell me what keeps you on it: a behavior, a setting, a requirement, anything OmniWM doesn't cover for you. Your answers will help me decide whether to continue Nehir and what to focus on.

I'll come back to Nehir, but other things come first right now, so replies will be slow.

Where things stand

• Stable: 0.5.1, brew install --cask guria/tap/nehir
• Release candidate: 0.6.0-rc.44, brew install --cask guria/tap/nehir@rc. The stable 0.6.0 I said was coming in Nehir 0.6.0 is almost here — sticky windows, a smarter workspace bar, and smoother multi-monitor setup (try the RC) #166 never shipped.
• OmniWM: brew install --cask omniwm. OmniWM doesn't read Nehir's config, so expect to set it up by hand.

[regionativo]

HI! I quickly switched to Nehir when I first tested OmniWM because of it's narrower focus. I have switched back to OmniWM because of its continuous releases and I'm happy to see you in that team.

There are features in OmniWM I don't really need (namely its dwindle layout), they don't really bother me as I can mostly ignore them. But there are new features I really like (such as OmniShell).

If you do decide to give Nehir a second try I'd be very interested on your approach. The beauty of open source is that there is no right or wrong answer here.

All the best!

[lamdor]

Thank you for Nehir, but like you I also switched to OmniWM. I've found it more than capable for what Nehir was doing before and it seems to just be a bit smoother too. I've also slimmed it down to be basically what Nehir was doing.

Don't fret about my PRs (I've already closed them). It's open source, you were under no obligation to merge or review them.

[bhedavivek]

Hi! I get it, no need for an apology. If you have plans to maintain Nehir independently beyond it being merely a subset of OmniWM I'm happy to contribute & help keep it active. I've been using OmniWM temporarily given updates here had stopped & OmniWM fixed a bug, which worked as expected in Nehir.

I still feel like Nehir's opinionated view of Niri style window management is better in some ways to OmniWM like window width percentage when it's a solo window in the workspace as opposed to OmniWM where we need to define the HxW dimensions.

[Guria]

Thanks. Can you share a bit more details on your expectations. I will see if it is compatible with OmniWM

[EricKY26]

I never used OmniWM before, just share some random thoughts.
I use Nehir as I want to find a Niri style window manager, and nothing else, no over-complicated features. So I just continue using it even if it does not get updates recently, and I find it good enough for myself. I think if you don't have time to develop, then can just fix critical bugs, keep it under maintenance status instead of a complete shutdown. And since we're on open-source community, maybe some others who have the free time could help as maintainer role. Hope Nehir could stay.

[axhixh]

First, thank you for Nehir.

I switched to Nehir from OmniWM because I loved the narrower scope. It does everything I need and have workarounds things that aren't working. In fact, I have loved the stability of/and not having frequent updates, specially for things I don't use.

I haven't used OmniWM for sometime so don't even remember the issues I had with it. I remember disabling tons of things in it. Even in Nehir, I disable few things. The features I use are keyboard shortcuts to switch workspaces, move windows around resize them.

[incanus]

Just a vote of praise and thanks for Nehir. I switched to it from OmniWM about six months ago because Sequoia was still supported (this got added, then taken away again in OmniWM) as well, similarly, the sane pace of change and stability compared to OmniWM, which had me doing manual config changes all the time. I only in the past week or two moved to rift instead from Nehir, so I don't have skin in the game, though I might come back to it at some point.