Contributing

This file collects contributor-facing details for Noctalia: design goals, stack notes, code style, source layout, runtime asset behavior, and debugging helpers.

For dependencies and normal build commands, start with README.md.

Design Principles

Direct Wayland + OpenGL ES only -- no toolkit overhead
Minimal scene graph, domain-specific to shell UI
Packaging should work across all major Linux distros: Arch, NixOS, Fedora, Gentoo, Debian, Void, OpenSuse

Stack

Layer	Library
Wayland core	`libwayland-client`, `wayland-scanner`, `wayland-protocols`
Surfaces	`xdg-shell`, `zwlr-layer-shell-v1`
Multi-monitor	`zxdg-output-unstable-v1`
Active window metadata	`zwlr-foreign-toplevel-management-unstable-v1`
Workspaces	`ext-workspace-v1`, `dwl-ipc-unstable-v2`
Clipboard	`ext-data-control-v1`, `wlr-data-control-unstable-v1`
Activation	`xdg-activation-v1`
Lockscreen	`ext-session-lock-v1`
Idle	`ext-idle-notify-v1`, `idle-inhibit-unstable-v1`
Cursor	`wp-cursor-shape-v1`
Keyboard	`xkbcommon`
Rendering	`EGL`, `OpenGL ES 3`, `wayland-egl`
Text	`cairo`, `pango`, `pangocairo`, `freetype`, `fontconfig`
Images	`Wuffs` (vendored), `nanosvg` (vendored), `stb_image_resize2` (vendored), `libwebp`
IPC	`sdbus-c++`
Audio	`libpipewire`, `dr_wav` (vendored)
Authentication	`PAM`
HTTP	`libcurl`
Config	`tomlplusplus` (vendored)
JSON	`nlohmann/json` (vendored)
Math expressions	`tinyexpr` (vendored)
Scripting	`Luau` (vendored)
Theme generation	Material Color Utilities (vendored)

Runtime Assets

meson install installs the binary and shipped assets separately using the normal prefix layout:

/usr/local/bin/noctalia
/usr/local/share/noctalia/assets/...

With a different Meson prefix/datadir, the same structure is preserved under that prefix.

Noctalia needs the assets/ tree at runtime. Copying only the bare noctalia binary is not enough.

Portable bundle layouts are also supported:

bundle/
  noctalia
  assets/

bundle/
  bin/noctalia
  share/noctalia/assets/

Runtime asset lookup order:

NOCTALIA_ASSETS_DIR
assets/ next to the executable
assets/ one level above the executable
install-style ../share/noctalia/assets relative to the executable
the compiled install path from Meson (<prefix>/<datadir>/noctalia/assets)
the source-tree assets/ directory as a development fallback

An asset root is only accepted if it contains the expected shipped files such as emoji.json, fonts/tabler.ttf, templates/builtin.toml, and translations/en.json.

Code Style

This project uses clang-format for formatting. Run just format before committing.

Naming Conventions

	Convention	Example
Files	snake_case	`widget_factory.cpp`
Directories	snake_case	`shell/widgets/`
Types / Classes	PascalCase	`WidgetFactory`
Functions / Methods	camelCase	`createWidget()`
Variables / Parameters	camelCase	`busName`
Private members	m_camelCase	`m_changeCallback`
Macros / Enum values	SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE	`MAX_SIZE`

D-Bus wire-protocol string literals, such as player["bus_name"], stay snake_case because they are wire names, not C++ identifiers.

Project Layout

src/
  main.cpp        Entry point
  app/            Application bootstrap, main loop
  auth/           PAM authentication (lockscreen)
  config/         Configuration and state persistence (TOML)
  core/           Logger, timer manager, shared utilities
  dbus/           DBus service implementations
  debug/          Debug service (runtime log toggling)
  idle/           Idle manager and inhibitor
  ipc/            IPC client/service (dev.noctalia.* commands)
  launcher/       Launcher providers (apps, emoji, math, usage)
  net/            HTTP client (libcurl)
  notification/   Notification manager
  pipewire/       PipeWire audio service and spectrum analyzer
  render/
    animation/    Animation manager and easing
    core/         EGL/GLES renderer, image decoders
    programs/     Shader programs per NodeType
    scene/        Scene graph nodes (Rect, Text, Image, Icon, InputArea, ...)
    text/         Cairo/Pango text rendering
  shell/
    bar/          Bar surface and instance
    clipboard/    Clipboard history panel
    control_center/ Control center panel and tabs
    launcher/     Application launcher panel
    lockscreen/   Session lockscreen surface
    notification/ Notification popup
    osd/          On-screen display (volume, brightness, ...)
    overview/     Workspace overview
    panel/        Panel base and manager
    session/      Session menu (logout, reboot, ...)
    tray/         System tray (StatusNotifierItem)
    wallpaper/    Wallpaper surface and instance
    widget/       Widget base and factory
    widgets/      Widget implementations
  system/         System monitor (CPU, RAM, temperature)
  time/           Time service and polling
  ui/
    controls/     Low-level UI building blocks (Button, Input, Label, Flex, ...)
  util/           Generic helpers (fuzzy matching, ...)
  wayland/        Wayland connection, seat, toplevels, clipboard, ...
    compositors/  Compositor-specific workspace backends (ext-workspace, sway, mango, dwl, ...)
third_party/
  tomlplusplus/   TOML parser (vendored)
  wuffs/          Raster image decoding (vendored)
  nanosvg/        SVG rasterization (vendored)
  stb/            Image resizing (vendored)
  tinyexpr/       Math expression evaluator (vendored)
  nlohmann/       JSON parser (vendored, header-only)
  dr_wav/         WAV decoder (vendored)
  luau/           Scripted widget runtime (vendored)
  material_color_utilities/ Material Design color generation (vendored)

Debugging

All debug commands use the dev.noctalia.Debug D-Bus service, available at runtime.

# Enable verbose debug logs
gdbus call --session --dest dev.noctalia.Debug --object-path /dev/noctalia/Debug --method dev.noctalia.Debug.SetVerboseLogs true

# Disable verbose debug logs
gdbus call --session --dest dev.noctalia.Debug --object-path /dev/noctalia/Debug --method dev.noctalia.Debug.SetVerboseLogs false

# Check current verbose log state
gdbus call --session --dest dev.noctalia.Debug --object-path /dev/noctalia/Debug --method dev.noctalia.Debug.GetVerboseLogs

# Emit an internal notification (app_name, summary, body, timeout_ms, urgency 0-2)
gdbus call --session --dest dev.noctalia.Debug --object-path /dev/noctalia/Debug --method dev.noctalia.Debug.EmitInternalNotification "Noctalia" "Test" "Hello from debug" 5000 1

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