this post was submitted on 02 Sep 2026
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Why isn't there a compositor agnostic Wayland API for window focusing? (lemmy.ml)
submitted 5 days ago by mawkler@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
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I'm working on a window switching tool for Wayland that's kinda like Alt-Tab. However, it seems like there's no compositor agnostic way to do things like:

  • List all currently open windows
  • Ask which window is currently focused
  • Focus a specific window

Therefore, if I want my tool to support multiple compositors, I have to re-implement this logic for each compositor.

Is the motivation security through program isolation? That doesn't quite make sense to me since programs still can do the above things, they just have to do it compositor specifically: hyprctl clients on Hyprland, niri msg windows for Niri, etc. Also, you could just have a Wayland API that requires elevated privileges for doing these things, which the user would have to opt-in to for a specific program.

I feel like this design of Wayland causes a lot of fragmentation. There are a lot of tools that are for example Hyprland-only.

Could you please enlighten me on why Wayland has this design?

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[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Forced by who exactly?

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

KDE, some distros.

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

A piece of software using another piece of software does not mean forcing anything on anyone.

Moreover, KDE runs on X11 and I don't know of any distribution which does not provide Xorg in their repositories.

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

KDE is dropping support for X11 next year: https://blogs.kde.org/2025/11/26/going-all-in-on-a-wayland-future/

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

So what?

Should they support X11 forever despite the fact that even the maintainers of X11 are barely maintaining X11?

Are they forcing you to do anything?

[–] PushButton@lemmy.world -1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Your grave is wide and deep enough, you can stop replying and jump in.

[–] ranzispa@mander.xyz 1 points 3 days ago

I'll wait for the cancer to eventually kill me while walking in the woods. I'll leave it written that you offered yourself to go find my body and carry it to the cemetery.

[–] JTskulk@lemmy.world 0 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'm not saying KDE should do one thing or another, I understand that maintaining code, even unchanging code as you claimed, takes effort.

Yes, they're going to force me to switch to Wayland on this machine. I'm on X because I need autokey, pyautogui, and TeamViewer. I need to look into alternatives and switch, except I don't have the option of replacing TeamViewer.

I'm not really partisan in the whole X vs Wayland jihad, I run Wayland on my 2 other machines and don't notice any difference.

[–] eldavi@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

and don’t notice any difference.

The tldr of why Wayland was adopted in the first place and the next hotness will also be forced upon us as well. Lol