SimpleWC (Simple Wayland Compositor)

It is a simple wlroots-based compositor (window manager) written to fit my specific needs, and a way to teach myself the basics of window management.

Description

• Minimal stacking (floating) window manager for Wayland using wlroots (currently based on wlroots v0.19)
• Not meant to be tiny or fast, but aims for simplicity in design and coding
• Written in C
• Built upon tinywl, inspirations from dwl and labwc
• Features:
  • No frills (menu, titlebar, icons, animations, pixmap themes, etc...)
  • Text config file (default $HOME/.config/simplewc/configrc)
  • Simple tiling (manual left-right or top-bottom tiling or one-shot auto-tile like DWL/DWM)
  • Support dwl module for waybar via dwl-ipc-unstable protocol

Screenshots

v0.1

Usage

> simplewc [--config file][--start cmd][--exit][--debug|--info][--version][--help]

Build

> meson setup [-Dxwayland=enabled|disabled] build
> ninja -C build || exit 1
> sudo ninja -C build install

• Build dependencies:
  • wlroots
  • libxkbcommon (usually a dependency of wlroots)
  • libinput (usually a dependency of wlroots)
  • xwayland (optional)
  • libxcb (optional - for xwayland)

Configuration

Default configuration file read from $HOME/.config/simplewc/configrc, and allows users to customize:

• window management behaviour: ( # of tags, tile gaps, movement steps etc )
• window border width and colour
• autostart script (e.g. set background, invoke status-bar, launch idle-inhibitor)
• keyboard layout and options
• input options (touchpad, tablet etc)
• keybinds
• mouse binds

Version Log

Please use Github Issues Tracker to report bugs and issues.

• 0.5 (work in progress)
  • Goal: Continue to improve the compositor.
  • Uses wlroots v0.19
• 0.4 (2025-06-16) (download)
  • Goal: Continue to improve the compositor, optimize for efficiency.
  • Uses wlroots v0.18
  • Remove simplewc-msg
  • Ability to fix (ie freeze) tag per output
  • Tablet input support (limited)
• 0.3 (2025-04-12) (download)
  • Goal: Better support for multihead and fullscreen
  • Uses wlroots v0.18
  • Improved support for multihead
  • Added fullscreen support
  • Added support for wlr_relative_pointer_manager_v1
• 0.2 (2024-08-29) (download)
  • Goal: add in additional features
  • Uses wlroots v0.17
  • Added visibility toggle (a.k.a. iconify) and maximize functionality
  • Added support for wlr_idle_notifier_v1, wlr_idle_inhibit_v1, and wlr_session_lock_manager_v1 (e.g. swaylock)
  • Added support for wlr_output_power_management_v1 (e.g. wlopm)
  • Added support for wlr_gamma_control_manager_v1 (Removed in version 0.5)
  • Added feature to send action via simplewc-msg (Removed in version 0.4)
  • Added support for dragging icons
  • Improve client cycling function
  • See ChangeLog for fixed bugs
• 0.1 (2023-12-23) (download)
  • Goal: get the base code in working order
  • Uses wlroots v0.17