Samuel Onoja
42c3b290dd
The top-bar recorder previously saved a full monitor without sound. It now lets you select a region within one monitor and choose system audio, microphone audio, or both. Audio remains off by default, and recordings with audio are saved as VP8/Opus WebM files. The portal still controls screen access and cancellation; stopping from the bar or ending the video stream finishes the recording, including its audio tracks. Region selection accounts for fractional display scales and negative monitor coordinates. The picker keeps its action buttons visible while the display list and recording options scroll together. The picker, dependency lists, and recording documentation now explain the available choices and the slurp and audio requirements. Routine pushes and pull requests no longer start CI runners. Workspace checks and website deployment are manual, while release checks run when requested manually, through a version tag, or through a PR labeled `release`. Publishing still requires a pushed version tag. This also fixes release asset checksums by normalizing RPM filenames before generating the checksum file. Validated locally with a release build, portal and shell recorder tests, formatting, Clippy, actionlint, packaging tests, and mocked publishing checks. Media tests encoded and decoded cropped video with audio, checked that video termination finishes live audio, and exercised system, microphone, and combined capture against a private PipeWire-Pulse server. Mixed recordings must contain both fixture frequencies, with negative controls for either missing source. The picker was also checked on 800 × 600 and 800 × 400 desktops and opened in a live nested window.
A configurable Wayland desktop
Install · Configure · Screenshots · Documentation
Ferese combines a window manager and desktop shell with one configuration.
Features
- Scrolling columns, window groups, tree tiling and floating windows with saved size and position
- Integrated shell with notifications, media controls, Settings and Control Center
- Custom panels with editable items, groups, surfaces, and top or bottom placement
- Workspace overview and recent-window switching
- Continuum animations: interruptible springs, gesture momentum and shared motion controls
- Live wallpapers and blur, custom KDL themes, and Light/Dark/Auto modes
- Multiple monitors, fractional scaling and lower refresh rates on low battery
- Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and audio controls
- Custom keyboard shortcuts and touchpad gestures
- Screenshot annotation, screen sharing and recording
- Lock screen and authentication dialogs
- Keep awake during fullscreen media playback or for selected apps
- Continuous corners for windows and shell
How Ferese compares
Ferese combines scrolling and tree layouts with its own desktop controls. The table compares current upstream features and names separate tools where they are needed.
| Feature | Ferese | Hyprland | niri |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tiling layouts | Scrolling columns and tree tiling; switch per workspace | Scrolling, dwindle, master and monocle; per-workspace layouts | Scrolling columns |
| Floating windows | Built in | Built in | Built in |
| Workspace overview | Built in | Plugins such as HyprExpo | Built in |
| Animations | Continuum: interruptible springs, gesture momentum; speed and reduced-motion settings shared by the compositor and shell | Bézier and spring curves | Spring and easing animations; custom shaders |
| Corner shapes | Continuous corners across windows and shell | Rounded corners and squircles | Rounded corners with optional clipping |
| Live configuration reload | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Monitor mirroring | Built in | Built in | Separate tool, such as wl-mirror |
| Desktop controls | Included Settings and Control Center | Separate utilities or a desktop shell | Separate desktop shell or tools |
| Notifications | Included in ferese-shell | Separate notification daemon | Separate notification daemon or shell |
| Lock screen | Included ferese-lock | Separate hyprlock | Separate locker, such as swaylock or hyprlock |
| Screen-sharing backend | xdg-desktop-portal-ferese | xdg-desktop-portal-hyprland | xdg-desktop-portal-gnome |
Ferese's shell, Settings, lock screen and dialogs use a shared theme. Other desktop shells, including DankMaterialShell and Noctalia, also include desktop controls; their features depend on the shell and tools you install.
Install
Fedora and Arch package builds are covered in Packages and releases.
Start with the dependencies, then clone Ferese and build it as your normal user:
git clone https://github.com/ferese-wm/ferese.git
cd ferese
./scripts/install.sh
Once it’s installed, log out and choose Ferese at your login screen, or run
ferese-session from a TTY or a greeter that accepts a command. The installation
guide also walks you through previews, updates and recovery.
Configure
Configure Ferese through Control Center → Settings or ~/.config/ferese/config.kdl.
Changes apply live. Invalid edits leave the last working configuration in place.
The configuration reference and example config cover appearance, window layouts, displays and startup apps.
Default shortcuts
Use Super, usually the Windows key, to move around your desktop, and open Settings →
Shortcuts whenever you want to change a shortcut or gesture.
| Control | Action |
|---|---|
| Super + Enter | Open a terminal |
Display Fn key (XF86Display) |
Choose the display mode |
| Media Play / Pause, Next, Previous | Control the selected MPRIS player |
| Super + H / J / K / L | Focus left / down / up / right |
| Super + Backspace | Return to the last focused window |
| Super + Escape | Toggle between the last two visited workspaces on this monitor |
| Alt + Tab / Alt + Shift + Tab | Preview recent windows forward / backward; release Alt to select, Escape to cancel |
| Super + F | Maximize the window |
| Super + Shift + F | Toggle fullscreen |
| Super + R | Cycle column width |
| Super + Tab | Open overview |
| Super + M | Switch scrolling / tree layout |
| Print Screen | Capture the active monitor and open Satty |
| Super + Shift + S | Select a screenshot area |
| Super + Shift + E | Ask to log out |
| Super + left-button drag | Move a floating window |
| Super + right-button drag | Resize a floating window |
| Three-finger swipe up / down | Next / previous workspace |
| Three-finger swipe left / right | Focus the window to the right / left |
See all shortcuts and mouse actions for window and workspace controls.
Documentation
The documentation index lists the desktop guides. Development instructions cover building, testing and contributing.
Ferese is written in Rust using Smithay. Development happens on GitHub. If something goes wrong, open an issue with the steps to reproduce it and any relevant logs.