Repeated panel updates rebuilt unchanged controls and SVG artwork, cloned composition data, and kept unused workspace icon resources. This reuses controls when their layout stays the same, bounds the SVG cache, removes temporary layout allocations, and releases icon resources when apps close or the workspace style changes.
Rapidly closing a modal could also leave a native surface behind when its asynchronous creation finished after the close. Late openings now get destroyed when their owner is gone. Ferese uses the published `ferese-v0.1.2` Iced/libcosmic fixes so a temporary software buffer/viewport size mismatch retries the frame instead of crashing.
Two runs per version of the same workspace/overview/reload workload measured **26% fewer allocated bytes and 23% fewer allocation calls**. A separate 1,800-cycle notification/modal stress run retained about **40 MiB less shell memory**, including shared-buffer retention falling from 28.2 MiB to 272 KiB. These are measured workload results, not an overall desktop speedup claim.
Validation:
- 1,350 workspace tests passed, including GPU Settings text rendering (50 optional tests ignored); formatting and Clippy passed.
- Native continuous/island panel tests passed rapid notification resizing, modal cancellation, and live material/input-region changes.
- A Wayland lifetime trace confirmed all 280 created modal surfaces were destroyed; longer DHAT traces and Intel GPU memory measurements were checked separately.
- All installation binaries rebuilt and the installation bundle passed inventory and checksum verification.
* Integrate panel composition, adaptive sizing, and overflow
* Add instance editing controls to panel settings
* Add panel group editing and measured composition preview
* Reorganize panel settings and add drag-and-drop item editing
* Simplify panel settings and place inspectors beside the editor
* Refine Panel & Shell settings, previews, and panel rendering
* Organize settings navigation and modernize packaged panel config
* Support top and bottom panels and refine shell surfaces
Add edge-aware settings, previews, popup placement, notifications, margins, and corner rendering. Preserve translucency in notification and dialog controls, and tighten spacing around the clock and display-mode icon.
* Add workspace styles and fix Settings text rendering
* Make panel allocation independent of measurement order
* Normalize panel item settings and visibility
* Move shell geometry into each panel
* Add independent group surfaces and finalize panel configuration
* Keep panel fit checks and restoration consistent with allocation
* Reject unknown panel item options and namespace metadata
* Reject invalid shell startup configuration and remove old radius fields
* Discover workspace application icons in a background task
* Remove the panel architecture document and improve reference prose
* Let panel media fill available space and improve Settings scrolling
* Preserve panel labels across clipped GPU rendering
* Use matching alpine lake wallpapers for light and dark modes
* Fix panel accessibility and popup lifecycle
Apply Reduce Transparency to panel opacity in the shell, compositor, and
Settings preview. Reject unknown theme tokens before snapshot substitution
and validate the current geometry fields in both consumers.
Dismiss popovers and workspace tooltips after panel layout changes. Handle
bar pointer exits directly and recover workspace hover after reentry without
repeated motion updates. Cover the transitions with regression tests and
update the wallpaper dimensions check for the bundled lake defaults.
* Use tagged Ferese toolkit fixes
* Fix center-only panel spacing and headless text rendering
* Bundle native 4K abstract wallpapers for both appearances
* Dismiss workspace tooltips before captured pointer dispatch
* Verify installed JPEG wallpapers when replacing a release
Group workspaces with Overview and status controls with the clock. Keep themed backgrounds and borders around each island, with click-through gaps and configurable side padding defaulting to 4 px.
Capture blur within each panel region and update material and input regions when island bounds change. Cover layout reloads and padding changes with widget and native shell tests.
Allow installed releases to omit the two newer appearance wallpapers while keeping new bundle verification strict. Fit the Settings header symbol within its square slot without clipping.
Verified 30 installer tests, the real upgrade dry-run, and release rendering previews on GPU and software backends.
Update the Ferese symbols, appearance-specific wallpapers, and rounded wallpaper and theme previews. Bundle Figtree and add the Ferese name to the website header.
Verified configuration, theme, Settings, wallpaper and installer tests, both UI renderers, the static site build, and browser layouts.
Use shared corner geometry for shell controls, window clipping, materials and blur masks. Preserve circular pills and controls where appropriate, track contour changes in damage, and use tagged ferese-shape and libcosmic dependencies.
Mount nearby shortcut and theme rows, preserve gallery keyboard navigation, reset page scrolling, and reuse native themes during palette transitions. Prepare and deduplicate live config reloads on a worker and apply only changed runtime sections.
Align pointer focus and overview selection on overlapping outputs, add regression coverage, and clean up workspace Clippy warnings.
Resolve light, dark and automatic appearance centrally and publish live theme snapshots to native surfaces and the appearance portal. Add paired preset families, custom theme imports, accessibility transforms and contrast-safe transitions.
Refine the Settings gallery and Auto controls, move overrides under advanced customization, and share palette-aware switches and circular slider thumbs. Document configuration and include theme licenses and integration coverage.
Add adjustable lock-only inactivity delays, a smooth dimming fade and DRM display sleep without changing output layout. Input, session resume and policy changes wake displays. Pending flips retire before power-off, and protected fallback frames preserve the policy after an early locker crash while unlock ownership checks remain strict.
Reduce the password field and avatar, expose delays in Settings, document the practical swaylock comparison and remove the completed backlog.
Validation: independent review cleared; 255 compositor tests, 7 locker tests and 15 Settings tests pass; affected debug binaries rebuilt. Isolated visual smoke remains blocked by an unlocked nested screenshot timeout, matching the previously established baseline presentation limitation. Real DRM display sleep requires a live session check.
Centralize native palettes, presets, typography, controls, menus, calendar rendering, and icon assets in ferese-theme. Reuse the shared components across the shell, settings, lock screen, authentication prompt, and screen-sharing chooser.
Attach themed dialogs to compositor-owned materials, correct backdrop capture and sampling across output transforms, smooth patterned backgrounds, and prevent clipped picker buttons with the configured shell font.
Split ScrollingLayout validation so the per-frame geometry solve only
checks scalars and keeps the full tree validation behind debug_assert,
removing a HashSet build from every frame. Replace the per-region Vec
in decode_regions with a stack array via as_chunks, and skip the window
hit test in PointerMotion when Overview is not presenting, where
visual_scale_for_window returns 1.0 regardless.
Guard sync_window_stacking behind a check that the space already matches
the target order with uniform z_index, avoiding an O(n^2) raise_element
loop on every redraw. Narrow window_under_visual to the space iterator
outside Overview, keeping the collected and sorted candidate list for
the Overview branch where front-to-back order is load-bearing.
Raise rust-version to 1.98 and clear the resulting Clippy findings
across the workspace: let-chain collapses, clamp, and while-let loops.
Keep notification actions and dismiss controls visible, compact and animate history, and add themed icon controls and grouping.
Include notification settings, session integration and documentation, on-demand workspaces, and performance baseline notes.
Add compact branded Settings with safe atomic edits, external config refresh and a draggable sidebar. Reconcile services, update connected displays and input devices, apply live layout policy and window rules, and resolve initial floating placement before tiled insertion. Package the Settings launcher and shared Ferese icon.
Samuel Onoja