v8-rc1

Release timeline

RC1: 2020 Apr 11
Release: Tentatively 2020 Apr 25

Changelog

Here are some of the notable changes since v7

New features

• You can now use the time variable in window shaders to get a timestamp. An example usage is to create animated effects, e.g. https://streamable.com/e0x7r (Thanks to @resloved #330)
• --max-brightness, which allows you to dim windows that are too bright. When enabled, all windows' average brightness will be clamped to the set value. (Thanks to @Jauler #247)
• Automatic configuration file reloading after it's changed.

Improvments

• A lot of the artifacts seen with blur and use-damage enabled are fixed.
• _NET_WM_BYPASS_COMPOSITOR property are now handled. (Related to i3/i3lock#204)
• Completely transparent windows won't have a blurred background anymore. (Thanks to @tryone144 #364)
• Improved fullscreen window detection. Now EWMH is used to detect fullscreen windows as well. You can turn it off with --no-ewmh-fullscreen (Thanks to @tatokis #187)
• Various improvments to the inverter.sh script (Thanks to @Paradigm0001 #362, and @quequotion #281)

Configuration changes

• wintype notify has been renamed to notification to match the EWMH names. (Old name still works)

Behavior changes

• picom no longer sets the opacity property on windows based on opacity rules. This is to fix the problem where picom "forgets" it set the opacity property after, e.g., window manager restarts. #134

Build changes

• libxdg-basedir is no longer a dependency (Thanks to @dylanaraps #322)

Fixes

• Fixed wrong client window detection after i3wm restarts #299
• Fixed wallpaper disappearing after screen resolution changes.
• Fixed crashing when a really big window is created with shadow
• Fixed --frame-opacity with the experimental backends
• --blur-* command line options are now handled properly (Thanks to @tryone144)
• Various build fixes (Thanks to @jenav #241, @jbeich)
• Various memory leakage fixes (Thanks to @liskin #236)
• Various documentation fixes and improvments (Thanks to @avivace, @tryone144, @davidschlachter, @liskin, @verfriemelt-dot-org)
• Various other crash, assertion failure fixes

v7.5

Only change since v7.4 is the rename from compton to picom, which is
backported from the next branch.

As a user, you don't need to update to this version.

As a distro packager, you should only package this version if you want
to adopt "picom" as the package name.

v7.4

• Fix several memory leaks, thanks to @liskin (#236)

v7.3

• Build changes:
  • Vendor test.h so people building from the release tarballs doesn't
    have to clone that repository with git (#224)

v7.2

• Fixes:
  • Stopped compton from sometimes freezing the X server when dbus is
    enabled.
  • Fixed the example dbus scripts.

v7.1

Fixes

• #209
• Fixed assertion failures, bugs, and memory leaks in experimental
  backends

v7

Release schedule

rc1 released on Jul 07, 2019
Final version released on Jul 18, 2019

Build changes

• compton now requires uthash to build.
• xcb-xinerama is now mandatory.
• Improved build experience on FreeBSD.

Notable changes

• compton now detects what driver it is using.

• glFinish is used automatically when not using NVIDIA driver. This should reduce input lag.

• Window shadow parameter is tweaked so it won't get cut off at the edges.

• The experimental glx backend now uses OpenGL 3.3 core profile.

• New blur configuration syntax. See here for details

  This is mainly a preparation for the kawase blur method. But if you are using the experimental backends, you can now get better gaussian blur without the need to generate blur kernels manually.

  Comparison:

  Before	After

  (Blur configuration used:

  blur: {
    method: "gaussian";
    size: 5;
    deviation: 3;
  }
  

  )

Changes

• Introduced the debug-mode. compton won't take over your screen when it's in debug mode, so you can, for example, use your debugger when compton is suspended.
• Improved transparency detection to avoid some of the necessary blur rendering #191
• Refactored how window creation is handled in compton. Should reduce possible races with X server.
• New (experimental) backends are now have feature parity.
• compton is no longer advertised to X server as xcompmgr.
• X atoms are now cached.
• More unused code removal.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed several crashes related to unredirecting.
• Fixed several rendering errors in the new glx and xrender backends.
• Fixed several rendering errors related to window reparenting.
• Fixed #50, but only under the experimental backends.
• Fixed regressions: #160 #164 #175 #176 #188 #189 #190
• Other fixes: #171

v6.2

Fixes some very visible bugs.

(v6.1 is retracted)

Fixes since v6

• Fix an assertion failure in map_win() (happens when using debug build of compton with i3-gaps) #143
• Fix a problem where the content of a closed window is left on the screen. #140 #82 (comment)
• Fix a problem where the content of a closed window is flashing on the screen when --use-damage is used. #82 (comment)

v6

Release schedule

• rc1 released: Mar 10, 2019
• Final release: Mar 23, 2019

Notable changes since v5.1

• Experimental new backends are integrated into compton, use --experimental-backends to enabled them. They are pre-alpha quality right now, and can simply just not work at all. It might even crash your X server (known to happen with Intel driver). You have been warned.
• vsync is now a boolean value, indicates whether vsync should be enabled. #130

Dependency and build changes

• xcb-xinerama is mandatory now. Build option xinerama is removed.

Other changes

• New glx backend is feature complete.
• New xrender backend is feature complete.
• Better handling of X visuals and GLX FBConfigs #104 cf9125c
• Failure to parse config file is now a hard error.
• Fading, window state tracking is refactored.

Deprecations

• --sw-opti is deprecated. Users who want to limit the paint rate should always just use --vsync.
• --glx-use-gpushader4 is deprecated, see 710ff2f
• --vsync-aggressive is deprecated, see e7de442
• Support for Composite < 0.2 dropped. d0fd21e
• New glx backend won't support OpenGL < 3.0
• --glx-swap-method is deprecated in favor of the easier to understand option --use-damage #131

Removed option

• --glx-copy-from-front and --glx-use-copysubbuffermesa are removed since they are deprecated 3 major releases ago.

v5.1

Fixes since v5

• #92 #98
• Config file search order makes more sense now. Make sure user config files are always preferred over system ones. c11c24b
• Fixed handling of -h. 9d64dec

Fixes since v5.1-rc1

• Fixed parsing of blur matrix when using locale with "," as decimal point. Thanks @x70b1 for pointing out. 465a968