RustWebRender 0.0.9

RustWebRender is an experimental lightweight native Rust HTML/CSS renderer for system UI. The bundled FlameWM V8 showcase is a self-contained virtual desktop simulation: HTML/CSS is compiled ahead of time, Rust owns behavior, X11/Xft/XRender paint it, and showcase actions never launch or reconfigure the host operating system.

This is not the production IceWM/FlameWM window manager. It is the standalone renderer/prototype used to test whether precompiled HTML/CSS can reproduce the FlameWM web prototype without Chromium, WebKit, JavaScript, GTK, Qt, Winit or WGPU.

Run

Ubuntu/Debian development dependencies:

sudo apt install cargo rustc pkg-config libx11-dev libxft2 libxrender1 libfontconfig1 xserver-xephyr x11-utils

IBM Plex Sans is preferred. If Fontconfig already sees it, no extra action is required. Otherwise place a user-owned IBM_Plex_Sans*.zip beside the project or in ~/Downloads; ./xephyr stages those faces below ignored target/ storage for the renderer process.

./doctor
./check
./xephyr

./xephyr builds the interactive renderer in release mode, opens a persistent 1350x641 nested desktop, and stays attached until Xephyr closes or Ctrl+C is pressed.

0.0.9 interaction, rendering and layout convergence

0.0.9 closes the current FlameWM V8 simulation gaps without crossing the virtual-only boundary. The renderer now presents complete frames through a retained full-screen X11 pixmap, scales the entire virtual coordinate system, and keeps pointer hit testing/action coordinates in the same logical space. The showcase adds four-edge taskbar docking, editable sticky notes, writable Start search, category hover, content-sized Start submenus, state-correct Pin/Unpin menus, corrected calendar geometry, and the requested desktop/window layering and alignment fixes.

Key 0.0.9 behavior:

• Desktop entries use one shared 82x82 / 44x44 geometry for Home, Downloads, Projects, Firefox, Trash and New Folder.
• Desktop selection is above desktop entries but below sticky notes and application windows.
• Translucent rounded XRender fills no longer compose overlapping rectangles over the same pixels, removing bright left/right strips.
• The X11 backend paints a complete frame into one retained pixmap and presents it with one XCopyArea, eliminating partial-window presentation during high-frequency movement.
• Task context actions follow pinned/running state and use the V8 Pin/Unpin Breeze assets.
• Start categories activate on hover, submenu height follows its entries, and the search field accepts text/Backspace/Enter/Escape and filters example applications.
• Settings switch knobs physically move with their boolean state.
• The taskbar can be dragged to Bottom, Top, Left or Right and reflows its children/popovers for orientation.
• 100/125/150/175/200% display scale changes the virtual viewport, drawing, fonts, assets, hit testing, work area and shell geometry together.
• The workspace pager is in the right-side cluster beside media/status controls.
• Sticky-note content is keyboard editable while its title strip remains the drag surface.
• Clock/date foreground, Dolphin body/sidebar sizing, close-hover corner masking and calendar row/popup sizing are aligned to the V8 target.

0.0.8 fixed startup

The fixed 0.0.8 archive repairs the startup crash:

rwr-flamewm-demo: node 'sticky-line-4' has no text child

The fourth sticky-note wrap line is a legitimate dynamic text slot that is empty at the default font size but can become populated at larger virtual font sizes. It is now compiled with an invisible zero-width seed so RuntimeDocument::set_text() always has a concrete text node to mutate. The seed is replaced during initial state synchronization before the desktop is presented.

Visual comparison remains available with:

./verify-visual

0.0.8 prototype parity

Correct alpha composition

0.0.8 fixes the bright pseudo-transparency visible in 0.0.7. Translucent colors are converted to the premultiplied representation used by the XRender source-over path before solid Pictures are composed over the already-painted desktop. Translucent borders also use XRender instead of the opaque core-X stroke path.

The desktop rectangle and desktop-entry states now match the V8 reference values:

hover fill             15%
hover border           30%
selected fill          28%
selected border        65%
selection rectangle    configurable 0..60%, default 20%
snap preview           configurable 0..60%, default 20%

Hover and selected state are painted on the same 82x82 desktop-entry box. There is no second child selection overlay, so their geometry cannot drift apart or double-compose alpha.

Desktop entries

• 82x82 V8 tiles with 44x44 icons.
• A fixed 76px label row centers Home, Downloads, Projects, Firefox, Trash and New Folder consistently.
• New Folder uses the normal folder artwork, matching the browser prototype's dynamically created folder entries.
• Single click selects; double-click opens the internal fake activity.
• Empty-space drag creates the translucent multi-selection rectangle.
• Dragging one member of a selected set moves the complete set while preserving relative geometry.
• Group release snaps to the V8 92x91 grid and avoids occupied slots.
• Right-click on a desktop entry opens its entry menu; Trash gets Empty Trash, other entries get Create Shortcut and Delete.
• All deletion/trash operations are virtual state only.

Taskbar activity model

The taskbar now models the web preview's pin/running state rather than treating each icon as a static launcher.

• Firefox, Files, Terminal and Code begin pinned.
• Settings, Elisa and generic application slots appear while running or after pinning.
• Running activity indicator: 24x2 gray line.
• Focused activity indicator: 32x3 current-accent line.
• Right-click task context menu follows V8 policy:
  • pinned + closed: Open, Unpin;
  • pinned + running: Unpin, Maximize|Minimize, Close;
  • unpinned + running: Pin, Maximize|Minimize, Close.
• Pin/unpin is session-local virtual state and never edits the host desktop.

Two-row workspace pager

The default four virtual desktops render as the V8 2x2 topology:

1  2
3  4

Directional virtual hotkeys use the same topology. Active workspace fill/border uses the live accent.

Window fixes

• Maximize and snap resize both the outer fake window and its application body, so content reaches the bottom of the work area rather than retaining the floating height.
• Floating geometry is retained for restore/drag-away.
• Close-button hover has a rounded red surface so it respects the rounded top-right window treatment.
• Existing movement, stacking, minimize, maximize/restore, close, titlebar double-click, half/quarter snapping and live rectangle preview remain.

Sticky note fixes

• Sticky copy is wrapped into deterministic native text lines within the 166px content width.
• Right-click opens a note-local context menu at the pointer.
• Settings exposes prototype-local background, text color and text-size choices.
• Delete Note removes only the virtual note.

Clock

Time and date now use centered flex rows inside the taskbar clock container instead of being offset toward one edge.

Accent authority

Changing the virtual accent updates all participating runtime surfaces from one DemoState authority:

• Settings navigation/controls;
• workspace state;
• running/focused task indicators;
• desktop hover/selection;
• selection rectangle;
• snap preview;
• display-selection preview.

Virtual-desktop isolation rule

The showcase intentionally has no xdg-open, Command::new, shell launch, NetworkManager mutation, XRandR mutation, host filesystem browser launch, logout, reboot or shutdown action path. Browser, Dolphin, Konsole, Code, Settings, media/network/session actions and About links are simulated inside the one nested prototype.

./check fails if host-launch primitives are reintroduced into the showcase controller.

Performance path

Interactive runs retain the 0.0.6 low-latency path:

• release opt-level=3 renderer;
• contiguous MotionNotify coalescing without skipping release events;
• cached image pixmaps and transparency masks;
• cached Xft fonts and colors;
• cached XRender solid Pictures;
• disabled GraphicsExpose traffic.

Architecture

HTML + constrained CSS + prepared assets
              |
              | build time
              v
       rustwebrender-compiler
              |
              v
           RWRB/2
              |
              | runtime
              v
       RuntimeDocument
       typed style/text/geometry/z slots
              |
              v
       virtual DemoState
       Press / Motion / Release
              |
              v
       rustwebrender-x11
       Xlib + Xft + XRender

HTML tokenization, CSS parsing, selector matching and cascade are not steady-state runtime work.

Validation

./check performs workspace unit tests, release compiler/demo builds, full V8 HTML/CSS -> RWRB/2 compilation, RWR inspection, the virtual-only source invariant and the font redistribution guard.

./doctor treats XRender as required for the faithful transparency path.

The preserved browser implementation remains under reference/flamewm-html-css-js-v8/ as the functionality and visual authority.