Compositing window manager
lastmod 2020-11-09created 2020-11-094 edits
A compositing window manager, or compositor, is a window manager that provides applications with an off-screen buffer for each window. The window manager composites the window buffers into an image representing the screen and writes the result to display memory.
With the Composite extension for X, an entire subtree of the window hierarchy is rendered to an off-screen buffer. Applications can then take the contents of that buffer and do whatever they want with it. The off-screen buffer can be merged into the parent window automatically, or by an external program called a compositing manager.
Some window managers (e.g. Compiz, Enlightenment, KWin, Marco, Metacity, Muffin, Mutter, Xfwm) perform compositing themselves. For other window managers, a standalone composite manager can be used. (e.g. xmonad)
So why use it?
It does things like making windows transparent or adding shadows.
List of composite managers
- Picom
- Compositor (a fork of Compton)
- https://github.com/yshui/picom || picom
- Xcompmgr
- Composite window-effects manager
- https://cgit.freedesktop.org/xorg/app/xcompmgr/
- Unagi
- Modular compositing manager which aims written in C and based on XCB
- https://projects.mini-dweeb.org/projects/unagi