Future of the project after 5.27

[boehs]

KDE is adding tiling in 5.27, and having tested it, it has a really nice UX.

In Nate's "This Week In KDE" post, he writes:

also the new APIs added for it should benefit 3rd-party tiling scripts that do want to let you turn KWin into a tiling window manager. Thanks very much to Marco Martin for contributing this work, which will be released in Plasma 5.27!

Is there some way you see that these two awesome features can work together?

edit: oh no...

[gikari]

Thank you for raising this issue.

I think I am going to deprecate the add-on after 5.27 releases. Here are a couple of reasons:

1. As I see in #473, Bismuth apparently is not working in 5.27. Also, it is fundamentally incompatible by design with the new KWin feature and needs a rewrite from the ground up. As you can see from the project history, I am not so good at rewrites, primary because it is a very time-consuming task, which is impossible to do because of the second point.
2. Currently, I do not have enough time and will to work on Bismuth due to a full-time software developer job to which I am committed. In general, my lifestyle changed drastically in the recent year, so I have new things to do and discover. Which takes us to the third point.
3. I do not use KDE Plasma anymore, because it is no longer works for me as a technical solution for my problems, so I am no longer observe the KDE Community in the same amount of detail, that allow me to enhance my work on the add-on.

In my opinion, the best solution to the presented problem is to wait for someone with the fitting background to write a new KDE Plasma add-on, that is designed better around the new APIs and UI of Plasma 5.27 and eventually around Plasma 6. This would be better for the community in every way.

Sorry to inform about that.

[boehs]

thank you for your service to our community

[elusyx]

Thank you for raising this issue.

I think I am going to deprecate the add-on after 5.27 releases. Here are a couple of reasons:

1. As I see in [Bug]: Broken on KDE 5.27 beta #473, Bismuth apparently is not working in 5.27. Also, it is fundamentally incompatible by design with the new KWin feature and needs a rewrite from the ground up. As you can see from the project history, I am not so good at rewrites, primary because it is a very time-consuming task, which is impossible to do because of the second point.
2. Currently, I do not have enough time and will to work on Bismuth due to a full-time software developer job to which I am committed. In general, my lifestyle changed drastically in the recent year, so I have new things to do and discover. Which takes us to the third point.
3. I do not use KDE Plasma anymore, because it is no longer works for me as a technical solution for my problems, so I am no longer observe the KDE Community in the same amount of detail, that allow me to enhance my work on the add-on.

In my opinion, the best solution to the presented problem is to wait for someone with the fitting background to write a new KDE Plasma add-on, that is designed better around the new APIs and UI of Plasma 5.27 and eventually around Plasma 6. This would be better for the community in every way.

Sorry to inform about that.

thanks for everything! if you don’t mind me asking, what did you switch to after KDE?

[maxfinnsjo]

So long and thanks for all the tiling.

[adrianvg]

Thank you for raising this issue.

I think I am going to deprecate the add-on after 5.27 releases. Here are a couple of reasons:

1. As I see in [Bug]: Broken on KDE 5.27 beta #473, Bismuth apparently is not working in 5.27. Also, it is fundamentally incompatible by design with the new KWin feature and needs a rewrite from the ground up. As you can see from the project history, I am not so good at rewrites, primary because it is a very time-consuming task, which is impossible to do because of the second point.
2. Currently, I do not have enough time and will to work on Bismuth due to a full-time software developer job to which I am committed. In general, my lifestyle changed drastically in the recent year, so I have new things to do and discover. Which takes us to the third point.
3. I do not use KDE Plasma anymore, because it is no longer works for me as a technical solution for my problems, so I am no longer observe the KDE Community in the same amount of detail, that allow me to enhance my work on the add-on.

In my opinion, the best solution to the presented problem is to wait for someone with the fitting background to write a new KDE Plasma add-on, that is designed better around the new APIs and UI of Plasma 5.27 and eventually around Plasma 6. This would be better for the community in every way.

Sorry to inform about that.

Well, we all need to prioritise! If this is the way Bismuth will go, I'd like to extend a thank you for the time given so far! So thanks!

[ladydascalie]

Thank you so much for all your work so far. It's sad to see Bismuth go, but it's totally understandable.

Congratulations on the awesome work, I'm pretty sure Bismuth is partly responsible for the popularity of tiling in the KDE community and probably was an influence on the decision to add those new features in 5.27

[b1scu1t]

I feared this would happen. I'm the user that suggested a merger of Bismuth and Kronkite on your Matrix server. Just want to say that you (@gikari), @esjeon, and the many other unnamed contributors did a damn good job. Kronkite/Bismuth was (arguably still is) the most feature-complete tiling window manager script for KWin, and I dread the day it finally stops working. Maybe both projects directly inspired the creation of KWin's new Tiling API...

Good luck in your future endeavours, and please don't start the Third Impact.

[PhusionDev]

Thanks for your hard work. I was using Bismuth on my Manjaro KDE setup as my first enjoyable tiler and enjoyed it a lot. I use amethyst on mac, and xmonad on my arch setup. I really liked bismuth and appreciate your efforts and wish you the best of luck in the future.

[phrxmd]

Thank you, and good luck!

[ca5ua1]

Thanks a lot!

[micoro]

Thank you for creating and maintaining this great tool until now. I am sad to learn that it will be deprecated but that's life.

Good luck and thanks again.

[rabfel-hobmet]

bismuth is the main selling point of KDE for me. this is very sad, indeed.

[boehs]

bismuth is the main selling point of KDE for me. this is very sad, indeed.

As the author acknowledged and I mentioned in the original issue, KDE is getting some tiling support, and plugins should be able to tie in. It seems likely native tiling will eventually come (though It's possible developers will be reluctant to implement it until Plasma 6)

[gagbo]

Thanks for all the good stuff!

[maxcurzi]

Ouch, I wish I checked this issue before going back to KDE, I loved Bismuth on Manjaro KDE Plasma, and it was the single reason why I moved back to KDE (Neon this time) after a short time with Mint.

Bismuth is (was) my ideal tiling manager (I'm not a fan of tiling DEs) and 5.27 tiling manager is just ...ok for now. I hope KDE keeps pushing it to become as close as Bismuth as possible (autotiling, quick resize, keyboard shortcuts, instant layout switch).

I do wonder if 5.27 tiling could be disabled and let Bismuth do its work, but that's a question for new maintainers, if any :(

[xfzv]

Ouch, I wish I checked this issue before going back to KDE, I loved Bismuth on Manjaro KDE Plasma, and it was the single reason why I moved back to KDE (Neon this time) after a short time with Mint.

Bismuth is (was) my ideal tiling manager (I'm not a fan of tiling DEs) and 5.27 tiling manager is just ...ok for now. I hope KDE keeps pushing it to become as close as Bismuth as possible (autotiling, quick resize, keyboard shortcuts, instant layout switch).

I do wonder if 5.27 tiling could be disabled and let Bismuth do its work, but that's a question for new maintainers, if any :(

I've updated to 5.27 yesterday and Bismuth still works just fine

[maxcurzi]

I've updated to 5.27 yesterday and Bismuth still works just fine

You are right! I got worried because after installing it I couldn't find it or its shortcuts, but after a reboot it worked just fine. I even installed Krohnkite as a possible replacement in the meantime (unfortunately is a bit too slow to resize/rearrange).

Great! I'll keep using Bismuth until it breaks (hopefully never!) :)

[ivan-gj]

Wait, what?

[Nano-Ocelot]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs.

One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur.

Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

[xfzv]

One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur.

Cannot reproduce any of these issues on my end, it works exactly like 5.26.5. However, I had a couple of random kwin_x11 crashes but I can live with that.

[maxcurzi]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs.

One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur.

Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I don't see these bugs either. Everything works exactly as expected (refocusing, resizing, auto tiling etc).

The only thing I had to manually do was to set Kwin rules to remove title bar and border for most windows, in Manjaro I had a "Bismuth" decoration that took care of it (and I just had to add some exceptions)

[ivan-gj]

Just updated Arch Linux to Plasma 5.27 (Wayland) and everything that I have tried still works as expected!

This is so relieving, I was expecting a broken bismuth and the final day of a great project, but everything is fine as always. This made my week!

[CarlosEkisde]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs.

One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur.

Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I can confirm that it mostly works with the same bugs.

[JustEnoughDucks]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs.

One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur.

Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I have the same bugs, but if windows don't auto fill to their space on close and you have to refloat and tile every single window whenever you close a window, that is not working tiling. That pretty much defeats the purpose of a tiling window manager which is having good, automatic distribution of space for windows in your workspace.

[Nano-Ocelot]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs. One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur. Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I have the same bugs, but if windows don't auto fill to their space on close and you have to refloat and tile every single window whenever you close a window, that is not working tiling. That pretty much defeats the purpose of a tiling window manager which is having good, automatic distribution of space for windows in your workspace.

That's strange. Mine appropriately auto tiles again whenever any window or window manager changes take place like even just opening a plasmoid, new window, changing virtual desktops, etc. I don't need to manually float then retile all the windows. I'm on Wayland btw.

[CarlosEkisde]

I can confirm mine works as well with only a few bugs. One is that window focus changing shortcuts no longer work (left,right,up,down directions) but other shortcuts that I tried worked fine. Another is that closing a tiled window no longer automatically resizes and repositions the other tiled windows, any subsequent window changes will cause the tiled windows to readjust (i.e. changing virtual desktops, opening new windows, hovering tooltips, etc). The last issue is that changing tiled window sizes with the mouse doesn't seem to properly work at all, the other windows don't change size and it will reset when any other window changes occur. Since this extension mostly works fine with just a few bugs can we expect this project to continue or anyone to make a fork? I'm curious if anything has changed in that regard. I was under the impression that this extension was completely broken after the update and I'm pleasantly surprised.

I have the same bugs, but if windows don't auto fill to their space on close and you have to refloat and tile every single window whenever you close a window, that is not working tiling. That pretty much defeats the purpose of a tiling window manager which is having good, automatic distribution of space for windows in your workspace.

That's strange. Mine appropriately auto tiles again whenever any window or window manager changes take place like even just opening a plasmoid, new window, changing virtual desktops, etc. I don't need to manually float then retile all the windows. I'm on Wayland btw.

The problem seems to appear when a window is closed only. Then, in my case, the windows don't reposition themselves automatically until something external, like a program, or the user doing anything triggers any reposition event. Then, every window goes to their corresponding place.

I wonder what could be the difference between those who report a correct behaviour and those who report a faulty behaviour. But it doesn't seem to be related to being on X11 or Wayland. Btw I have tried on a fresh install on a VM and the same bugs are appearing in there.

[intentionally-left-nil]

As a fan and sponsor I want to say thank you for all the hard work you've put into the addon. It's really unfortunate that KDE broke the addon without providing a meaningful migration path forward. Best of luck in your future endeavors.

I can also confirm the 5.27 experience is more or less broken for me. Windows don't get resized when opening (sometimes). Windows never resize after closing a window. It's not a working experience any more

[CarlosEkisde]

https://github.com/Bismuth-Forge/bismuth/issues/473#issuecomment-1435768899

I wanted to post this in this issue, but is the same anyway. It seems that a fix to kwin probably related to our problem is going to arrive soon.

[vtmx]

Thank you for raising this issue.

I think I am going to deprecate the add-on after 5.27 releases. Here are a couple of reasons:

1. As I see in [[Bug]: Broken on KDE 5.27 beta #473](https://github.com/Bismuth-Forge/bismuth/issues/473), Bismuth apparently is not working in 5.27. Also, it is fundamentally incompatible by design with the new KWin feature and needs a rewrite from the ground up. As you can see from the project history, I am not so good at rewrites, primary because it is a very time-consuming task, which is impossible to do because of the second point.

2. Currently, I do not have enough time and will to work on Bismuth due to a full-time software developer job to which I am committed. In general, my lifestyle changed drastically in the recent year, so I have new things to do and discover. Which takes us to the third point.

3. I do not use KDE Plasma anymore, because it is no longer works for me as a technical solution for my problems, so I am no longer observe the KDE Community in the same amount of detail, that allow me to enhance my work on the add-on.

In my opinion, the best solution to the presented problem is to wait for someone with the fitting background to write a new KDE Plasma add-on, that is designed better around the new APIs and UI of Plasma 5.27 and eventually around Plasma 6. This would be better for the community in every way.

Sorry to inform about that.

Thank you very much for developing Bismuth, it has been an excellent tool in my daily life, I wish you health and happiness.

Out of curiosity, which DE did you replace KDE with?

[Orio910]

hoping somebody will fork it and maintain. Bismuth is only way to have best tiling in KDE.