Horizon DE 0.5.37-alpha - Release notes

Welcome to the release notes for Horizon DE 0.5.37! This update introduces major improvements to image handling, window compositing, screen recording features, and under-the-hood optimizations for a more refined desktop experience.

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 New Features & Enhancements

🖼️ Graphics & UI Components

• Image Caching & Thumbnails: Implemented persistent image caching in GraphicsContext using file paths, added crop mode for images, and integrated a synchronous ThumbnailCache. Added thumbnail fallback logic and background polling for missing thumbnails in FileCoverFlowView.
• Compositor & Wayland Updates: Added WaylandWindow load event (now used by SystemMonitor for process initialization), optimized dirty widget tracking, and implemented default cursor support for menu components. Added dynamic updates for compositor animations via new configuration management utilities.
• Widget Enhancements: Added a unified submit event to TextBox components.

🎥 Capture Engine & Screen Recording

• Advanced Capture Support: Implemented screen recording delay and support for multi-output selection in the capture engine.
• Internationalization: Internationalized capture preferences and updated core file dialog strings.

🛠️ Bug Fixes & Refactoring

• Capture Interface: Cleaned up the CaptureWindow UI, adjusted widget dimensions, and fixed capture execution logic. Replaced VPanel with a generic Widget in the UI setup. Removed legacy window capture functionality in favor of display-specific output targeting.
• Event Handling: Replaced manual key press checks with a unified when_submit signal and updated video driver rendering logic.

Horizon DE 0.5.21-alpha - Release notes

Welcome to the release notes for Horizon DE 0.5.21! This update introduces the brand-new AppStore application for seamless package management, alongside major improvements to the system appearance settings and under-the-hood optimizations for a more refined desktop experience.

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 New Features & Enhancements

🛍️ AppStore & Package Management

• Introducing the AppStore: Easily discover, install, update, and remove packages seamlessly. It even includes full system update functionality.
• Rich App Discovery: Features an interactive featured apps carousel with dynamic image loading, top-rated sections, and easy category navigation from the FeaturedView to the ExploreView.
• Under the Hood (AptManager): Powered by the new AptManager library, ensuring safe and efficient background package operations with built-in cache reloading.
• Detailed Metadata & Ratings: Integration with AppStoreClient allows the display of rich application metadata and user ratings, with a dynamically loading UI.
• Localization: Full internationalization support ensures the AppStore is ready for a global audience.

🎨 Appearance & Compositing

• New Compositor Settings: Introduced CompositorView and MeteorPluginManager, completely replacing the old screensaver settings module for a more robust and modern configuration experience.
• Fresh Window Animations: Added new visual flair with squeezimize, zoom, and "magic lamp" effects to the Appearance View plugins.

🧩 UI Toolkit & Navigation

• New Layouts & Widgets: New vertically resizable HPanel widget for split views.
• Improved Navigation: Implemented scroll-to-index functionality in TableView.

🛠️ Bug Fixes & Refactoring

• ArkFM Updates: Updated ArkFM icon.
• AppStore Refinements: Various tweaks including renaming 'uninstall' to 'remove', improved state tracking, and session-managed configurations.

Horizon DE - v0.5.8-alpha Release Notes

Welcome to the release notes for Horizon DE 0.5.8-alpha! This update introduces major improvements to our file manager's IconView, enhanced clipboard operations, significant optimizations in image rendering performance, and crucial bug fixes for a smoother desktop experience.

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 New Features & Enhancements

File Management (IconView & Clipboard)

• Rubberband Selection: Implemented rubberband selection for IconView with auto-scrolling support, making bulk file selection intuitive and seamless.
• Smart File Operations: Introduced smart file naming for copy operations to prevent conflicts, and enabled full move support within the clipboard system.
• Mouse Handling Refactor: Migrated IconView mouse event handling to dedicated signals, improving modularity and interaction responsiveness.

Rendering & Performance

• Image Rendering Optimization: Implemented Cairo surface caching in drawPixels to significantly optimize and accelerate image rendering performance across the UI.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

• Wayland & Popups: Implemented Wayland global coordinate workarounds and improved popup interaction handling, resolving placement and focus issues.
• Austral Welcome: Fixed the application icon display for austral-welcome to ensure it appears correctly in the system dock and launcher.
• Session Configurations: Updated session configurations for improved stability and system integration.

Horizon DE - v0.5.3-alpha Release Notes

Welcome to the release notes for Horizon DE 0.5.3-alpha! This update introduces a brand new print system, major updates to our compositor technology by migrating to Meteor, expansive file management enhancements in ArkFM, and crucial bug fixes for a smoother desktop experience.

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 New Features & Enhancements

Print System Integration

• Modular Architecture: Implemented a new modular print service library with backend abstraction and robust asynchronous support.
• CUPS Integration: Added comprehensive CUPS backend and UI components for seamless printer management. Optimized CUPS discovery using lpinfo and single-pass pkexec calls, while offloading printer registration to background threads.
• Driver & PPD Management: Implemented automatic PPD detection alongside a new DriverSearchDialog for manual printer driver installation.
• Print Dialog: Reorganized file menu layouts to group print options seamlessly, added printing shortcuts, and implemented full print dialog functionality with test utilities and printer test page assets.

File Management (ArkFM & Views)

• File Operations: Implemented file renaming through an editable label mode (triggered by F2). Added robust file clipboard support in FileIconView and improved Wayland clipboard backend stability.
• Extensive Preferences: Introduced a user-configurable preferences section in ArkFM to customize click behaviors, hidden files, and extension visibility.
• Navigation Enhancements: File manager now supports opening specific directories via command line arguments. Set initial focus and implemented Enter key submission for NewFolderDialog.

Desktop & UI Components

• Meteor Compositor: Successfully replaced legacy Wayfire integration with full Meteor compositor support. This brings improved effects configuration, accurate dock icon position routing, and an updated squeezimize window animation effect (Magic Lamp style).
• Launchpad Improvements: Added global Super key binding to trigger Launchpad. Introduced full keyboard navigation, application launching, power control buttons, and a close action to the Launchpad window.
• System Indicators: Implemented new VolumeIndicator and System Update indicator widgets with background monitoring and deep UI integration. Added a fallback Places menu to the Top Panel.
• Desktop Modes: Integrated desktop file icons into WallApplication and implemented a dedicated desktop mode in FileIconView with shadow support for labels. Added context menus to wallpaper widgets.
• Visuals: Enabled popup background blur, applied dynamic menu opacity, and disabled decorations for the app picker dialog.

System Integration & Under the Hood

• Session & Privilege Handling: Updated privilege escalation to use sudo, enhanced greeter session handling, and introduced configuration automation for system sessions.
• Memory Configuration: Standardized the memory configuration path to point to /usr/share/horizon/memory for accurate hardware reading.
• Packaging: Moved app version tracking to global properties to allow independent component versioning in Debian packages, and standardized global versions to prevent Aptly conflicts.
• Internationalization: Migrated ArkFM translation keys to the core namespace, added English and Spanish localization for the new print system, installed missing locale files, and implemented a locale migration script.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

• Resolved a bug causing vault closure issues within the WaylandWindow popup listener.
• Corrected prefix path handling in mark_setup_done by reliably stripping trailing slashes and ensuring consistent path concatenation.
• Updated terminal window dimensions and fixed translator field formatting.
• Fixed APP_ID to use hyphens consistently in the austral-welcome CMake configuration.

🧹 Refactoring & Chores

• Moved file provider and dialog classes directly from the ArkFM application to the core horizon library for better reusability.
• Synchronized menu state management in the Top Panel and disabled keyboard interactions for wall surfaces to prevent focus stealing.
• Improved focus management, event propagation, and label editing behavior across multiple widgets.

Horizon DE v0.4.42-alpha - Release Notes

Welcome to the release notes for the Horizon Desktop Environment! This release brings a wealth of new features, essential bug fixes, and under-the-hood refinements that improve both functionality and performance.

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 New Features & Enhancements

File Management (ArkFM & Views)

• Hidden Files Toggle: Added support for toggling hidden files visibility via menu and shortcuts, complete with dynamic text updates in the global menu.
• Terminal Integration: Added an "Open in Terminal" option to file and context menus.
• Enhanced Selections: Implemented multi-selection support using Ctrl-click and Shift-click (range selection) in IconView and TableView.
• Thumbnail Previews: Integrated background thumbnail generation via horizon-lens. Implemented thumbnail support in FileIconView, rotating previews for directories in FolderPreviewWidget, and ThumbnailCache integration in FileCoverFlowView.
• File Operations: Implemented multi-file compression (with GZ format support) avoiding filename collisions. Added file trash, restore, and empty functionality with full UI integration.
• Navigation & Filtering: Added a path navigation button with directory update and go-up functionality. Implemented file filtering in FileDialog (with PDF filter integration) and GTK bookmark support in the sidebar.

Desktop & UI Components

• Global Systems: Introduced global undo/redo and zoom systems with automated menu management, widget discovery, and event dispatching.
• Dock Customization: Added autohide functionality and vertical positioning on the left and right screen edges for the dock. Items can be dragged for reordering in both horizontal and vertical layouts.
• RibbonToolbar: Introduced the RibbonToolbar component with active tab highlighting, custom styling, gradient headers, and mouse wheel scrolling.
• Visuals & Theming: Implemented dynamic theme color keys for icons, updated WebView backgrounds to utilize ThemeManager, and enabled the winshadows plugin. Dynamic CPU usage color tracking added.
• Terminal & Navigation: Added keyboard selection mode to TerminalWidget and global keyboard shortcuts for tab navigation (Ctrl+Tab, Ctrl+Shift+Tab, Ctrl+W) in TabCollection. Keyboard navigation and auto-scrolling were also added to TableView and IconView.

System Integration & Under the Hood

• XDG Portal Service: Implemented xdg-desktop-portal-horizon service with appearance settings and FileChooser portal support. Added D-Bus interface for asynchronous thumbnail requests.
• Audio & Session: Implemented persistent audio settings, ensuring PipeWire services start properly during initialization. Session initialization transitions from static DISPLAY exports to dynamic socket polling for Wayland and XWayland.
• Packaging: Switched default packaging to a component-based model with automatic meta-package generation and improved CMake logic.
• Internationalization: Added I18n::get_valid_system_locale for proper system locale validation against /usr/share/i18n/SUPPORTED. Localized context menu items for file operations.

🛠️ Bug Fixes

• Fixed environment variable handling (DISPLAY) during session initialization and login mode.
• Corrected vterm callbacks, terminal data flushing, and key event propagation after terminal copy/paste.
• Solved event propagation and selection clearing bugs in TableView and IconView.
• Prevented accidental dock item clicks during drag operations and fixed use-after-free bugs in drag callbacks.
• Adjusted window resize dimensions based on dock positioning to ensure correct hit-testing.
• Added timeouts to systemd service commands to prevent session startup hangs.
• Corrected CTRL modifier mapping and signal-based clipboard shortcuts with control character filtering.

🧹 Refactoring & Chores

• Replaced widget lifecycle checks with atomic alive flags to prevent asynchronous use-after-free errors (e.g., in DownloadView).
• Restructured RibbonToolbar layout calculations, window background rendering, and tab activation handling.
• Optimized handling of file deletions for bulk operations and optimized network status indicator rendering.
• Implemented an internal clipboard buffer in TextBox and Textarea to improve clipboard data handling.

Horizon DE v0.4.21-alpha

📝 Release Notes — Horizon DE v0.4.21-alpha

Welcome to the release notes for Horizon DE version 0.4.21! This development cycle has focused primarily on a deep migration towards dynamic customization and system-wide theme support (Theming).

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🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🚀 Key Highlights & Features

🎨 Extensible Customization & Global Theme Support

The system's visual management has been redesigned through the global integration of ThemeManager alongside major improvements to its flexibility:

• Color Scheme Selection UI: A new user interface implemented in Appearance preferences (AppearanceView) for direct color scheme selection.
• Smart Opacity & Transparency: Implemented support for adjustable UI element opacities, linear gradient menu backgrounds with configurable bottom opacity, and alpha transparency support for panel backgrounds.

⚙️ System Monitoring & Resilience

• Critical Session Services: Implementation of robust monitoring and automatic restart logic for critical session services, substantially improving fault tolerance.
• Dynamic Compositor Selection: Added a compositor selection user interface to preferences and updated session startup scripts to support dynamic switching.

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📈 Change History

Version	Summary
v0.4.21	Solid borders color scheme and improved text coloring in FileIconView.
v0.4.19	Theme-aware colors integrated for menus and notifications.
v0.4.18	Updated tab styling to use theme colors from ThemeManager.
v0.4.17	Theme-aware icon colors enabled for top panel indicators.
v0.4.14	Refined highlight rendering in AquaObject and visual enhancements.
v0.4.11	Dynamic text and placeholder colors for input components.
v0.4.9	Dedicated panel and tab theme variables introduced.
v0.4.8	Theme-based styling support for Sidebar and VPanel.
v0.4.7	Recursive theme application across the entire IconView component.
v0.4.6	Theme-based color implementation for the Textarea component.
v0.4.4	Air widget styling updates and refined color scheme.
v0.4.2	Updated AquaObject styling with new color scheme definitions.
v0.4.1	Added window_bg_alt color variable for optimal contrast.

🚀 Horizon v0.4.0-alpha - Release Notes

This release marks a significant milestone in the maturity of the Horizon ecosystem, with the arrival of Core version 0.4.0 and major updates to all primary applications.

🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

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🏛️ Horizon Core (v0.4.0-alpha)

The system's central engine has been optimized to provide a smoother and more professional experience.

• Performance Optimization:
  • Implementation of Intelligent Caching for MIME types and desktop entries, drastically reducing response times.
  • Lazy (on-demand) context menu generation for instant loading of directories containing thousands of files.
• Application Management:
  • Consolidation of .desktop file management.
  • Integration of AppPickerDialog into the core library for unified usage across the entire system.
• Input and UI Subsystem:
  • Improvements to Wayland clipboard interoperability.
  • Event serial tracking for enhanced interaction stability.
• Network Storage:
  • Refactoring of network components into a dedicated library (horizon-network-storage).
  • Improved logic for detecting and managing remote mount points.

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📂 ArkFM (v0.2.8)

The file manager receives its most ambitious update to date.

• Compression Tools:
  • Integration of the new compression library with support for Zip, Tar, 7z, and Rar.
  • Background task support with real-time progress tracking.
  • Smart Extraction: Automatically detects whether a file should be extracted into a new folder or the current directory.
• Remote Storage:
  • Full support for connecting to and mounting servers (Samba, FTP, etc.).
  • Functional sidebar integration with eject/unmount capability.
  • Secure credential management.
• User Experience:
  • Human-readable file size formatting (KB, MB, GB).
  • View stabilization through generation tracking, eliminating redundant refreshes.

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🛠️ New Applications and Utilities

📦 Package Installer (v0.1.0)

• New utility for easy installation of .deb packages.
• Asynchronous package metadata inspection.
• Modern interface with progress indicators and drag-and-drop support.

🔑 Keyring Manager (v0.1.0)

• Complete replacement for gnome-keyring, designed specifically for Horizon.
• Implementation of the D-Bus Secret Service protocol.
• Multi-layer encryption with wrapped keys for maximum security.
• PAM integration for automatic unlocking upon login.

📊 System Monitor (v0.2.1)

• Extended monitoring support for:
  • Network: Real-time incoming and outgoing traffic visualization.
  • Disk: Monitoring of read and write I/O activity.
  • Energy: Battery status and power consumption.
  • Memory: Detailed breakdown of RAM and Swap usage.
• New chart widgets with support for system accent colors.

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🌐 Internationalization (I18n)

• Language support (Spanish and English) has been extended to all system components, including the new mount dialogs and the package installer.

Horizon v0.3.0-alpha

Horizon 0.3 Release Notes

🖥️ Experience Horizon

Horizon is not just a toolkit — it powers an entire desktop environment.

The best way to experience it today is through Austral OS, where Horizon drives the full system UI.

👉 Explore Austral OS

Highlights

Horizon 0.3 introduces major advancements across the desktop experience, system infrastructure, multimedia capabilities, networking, notifications, and power management. This release significantly expands the Horizon ecosystem with several new applications, libraries, and Wayland improvements.

New Features

Drag & Drop Support (Wayland)

Horizon now includes a much more complete drag-and-drop implementation across the desktop stack.

Added

• Wayland drag-and-drop protocol support
• File drag-and-drop support in applications
• Directory drop support
• Cursor synchronization and cursor theme handling improvements

A complete notification framework has been added.

New Components

• Notification daemon
• D-Bus notification support
• Notification indicator widget
• Configurable notification settings UI
• Background file watching integration

The networking stack received major upgrades and now includes a more complete graphical configuration experience.

Added

• horizon-network library
• Real D-Bus integration with NetworkManager
• Wi-Fi connection support
• Advanced network configuration view
• Device persistence support
• Connection name management
• IP and gateway detail retrieval
• TCP/IP advanced settings UI
• Network device management interface
• Status indicators and visual styling

Horizon now includes a more complete users management experience.

Added

• User management interface
• User creation support
• User avatar selection and updates
• Password change dialog
• User deletion confirmation dialogs

New power and energy management infrastructure has been introduced.

Added

• horizon-powerd daemon
• Battery charge limits
• Brightness management
• Power profile selection
• Lock screen application
• Battery indicator visuals

Horizon now includes a full capture and recording framework.

Added

• Screen capture engine using Wayland screencopy protocol
• Interactive region selection
• Full-screen selection overlay
• Video recording with FFmpeg
• PipeWire audio recording support
• MP3 audio encoding

New Horizon Video Library

Introduced horizon-video with MPV backend

• Zenit Media Player
• Video playback support
• Fullscreen mode

A new system monitor application has been added.

• Process monitoring
• CPU usage tracking
• Memory usage tracking
• Process sorting
• Process termination confirmation dialogs

Vault Component

A new floating popover system called Vault was introduced.

Features

• Interactive floating popovers
• Dynamic positioning
• Directional arrows

Welcome & Installer Improvements

Added

• austral-welcome application
• Installer avatar selection
• Polkit agent integration
• Root password synchronization

Web & Browser Improvements

Added

• Persistent cookies and storage
• Download manager
• Download context menus
• 2D canvas acceleration
• Eruda inspector integration
• Tab title synchronization

Horizon OS 0.3, introducing:

• A significantly more complete desktop environment
• New core system applications
• Expanded multimedia support
• A modernized Wayland experience
• Better networking and power management
• Improved stability and developer infrastructure