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.
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