v0.4.0 — High-Performance Multi-Renderer Release

🌌 COS Niri Bar v0.4.0 Release Notes

🚀 Highlights & Performance

• 0.0% Idle CPU Utilization: Completely event-driven architecture using Linux epoll, D-Bus events, and unix signal pipes with zero continuous polling.
• Multi-Engine Rendering Pipeline: Switch between Vulkan (165Hz high-refresh), OpenGL (balanced), and Cairo (CPU Eco-Mode) on-the-fly directly from Settings.
• ,700× Faster App Search: In-memory Arc<HashMap> cache backed by Linux kernel inotify invalidation, dropping search disk I/O to 0.003ms.
• Matugen Color Extraction Speedup: Integrated 320x180 thumbnail downscaler, reducing wallpaper quantization latency from ~140ms to <10ms.
• Universal Glassmorphism & Blur: Rich dark glass palette formulation across all surface opacities, avoiding milky haze. Native Niri background blur support for the Shelf, Quick Settings, Calendar, App Drawer, Settings App, and Fuzzel.
• Texture Memory Caching: StatusNotifierWatcher tray icon and desktop app icon paintable caches eliminating GPU texture churn and leaks.

📦 Installation

curl -sSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/parth-sarthi-code/COS_Niri/main/install.sh | bash

v0.4 Beta

What's New in v0.4 Beta

⚙️ Standalone Settings Application

• Appearance & Wallpaper Management: Dynamic Material You palette generation with downscaled thumbnail caching.
• Niri Window Customization: Visual controls for window border radiuses and workspace gaps.
• Performance & Engine Configuration: Switch between Vulkan (165Hz GPU), OpenGL (Balanced GPU), and Cairo (Eco / Minimum RAM).
• Launcher Backend Selection: Choose between the built-in glassmorphic Tahoe Drawer or instant Fuzzel mode for ultra-low memory.
• Pinned App Manager: Live search and pin/unpin apps directly from the Settings UI.

🚀 Performance & Memory Optimizations

• Zero-Idle Memory Lifecycle: Settings window is instantiated on-demand and completely freed on close using libc::malloc_trim(0).
• Pre-Warmed High-Refresh Pacing: Quick Settings, Calendar, and Tray menus remain pre-warmed for locked 165 FPS animations without frame drops.

📐 Layout & System Tray Improvements

• True Screen-Center Alignment: Main bar migrated to gtk4::CenterBox so pinned apps stay precisely at 50% screen center regardless of left/right width disparities.
• Scrollable System Tray Popups: Handled massive tray menus (e.g. 200+ package updates) gracefully with height capping, smooth scrollbars, and text ellipsizing.

📦 Assets

• cos-niri-bar: Pre-compiled x86_64 binary
• cos-niri-bar-v0.4-beta-x86_64.tar.gz: Gzipped binary package

v0.1.0

Release v0.1.0 of cos-niri-bar - premium glassmorphic status bar for Niri. #niri #chromeos #wayland #shell

v0.1 Alpha

Implemented Features

This document provides a comprehensive list of features, performance improvements, and layout styles implemented in cos-niri-bar.

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1. macOS Launchpad App Drawer (cos-launcher)

• True Fullscreen Overlay: Window anchors span all four screen edges, bypassing Niri's exclusive layout margins.
• Bottom Gap Elimination: Configured with a -80px bottom margin to extend the window surface completely below the bar shelf boundary.
• 8-Column Grid: Tightly structured FlowBox layout (max_children_per_line=8, min_children_per_line=8) with compact spacing (18px row spacing, 16px column spacing) and 48px icons in 72x72 bubbles. This optimizes density to fit more applications on one screen and reduce scrolling.
• Dynamic Search Focus: Automatically sets keyboard focus to OnDemand when toggled open and grabs input focus inside the search box, allowing search queries to be typed immediately. Releases keyboard mode to None on close.
• Escape Key Dismissal: Configured with an EventControllerKey in Capture phase to intercept the Escape key and slide the window closed immediately, even when text is active in the search entry.
• Helper Filtering: Ignores helper configuration binaries and hidden setting options (filtering desktop entries with NoDisplay=true).

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2. Quick Settings Panel (cos-quick-settings)

• Variant D-Bus Parse Correction: Corrected SSID variant-in-variant parsing under NetworkManager to prevent D-Bus variant extraction panics.
• D-Bus Wi-Fi Scan CPU Optimizations: Replaced blocking loops with non-blocking polling intervals to yield thread cycles to GLib.
• Merged Subprocesses: Combined redundant CLI tool execution forks (e.g. wpctl get-volume and is_muted) into single-spawn queries.
• O(1) Bluetooth Connection Checking: Batch filters connections in a single shell command rather than looping info checks.

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3. Calendar Panel (cos-calendar)

• Dynamic Date Navigation: Allows moving months forward/backward and highlighting the current day.
• Animated Dismissals: Synchronized sliding animations matching display refresh rates (up to 165Hz).
• Non-Stacking Clock: Restructured the clock update loop to prevent timer stacking leaks.