MangoWM drops 0.16.3, adding GNOME app switcher and inline config comments
The dwl-based Wayland compositor ships four releases in under a month, fixing Firefox sharing and broadening its appeal to CJK users.
MangoWM, the Wayland compositor that's quietly becoming the most feature-rich fork of dwl, has released version 0.16.3. It brings a GNOME-style application switcher, inline comments to the configuration file, and a focus direction toggle for multi-monitor setups.
What's in 0.16.3
The new app switcher is the major feature. Mango already had an improved Alt-Tab from the 0.16.0 release. This adds a GNOME-flavored alternative for users migrating from traditional desktop environments who still want dwl's performance. The config changes are practical. Inline comments let you put # notes on the same line as directives. If you have messy configs, this cleans things up fast.
There's a breaking change, though. The overview tab mode now dispatches via overcircle. If you have custom keybindings, you'll need to update them to bind=Super,Tab,overcircle,next. The Firefox window sharing fix is significant. Wayland screen sharing relies on portals, and prior to this, sharing a Firefox window could result in a black screen. If you use Firefox for remote work, this was a blocker.
The Chromium and Fcitx5 crash fix targets CJK input users. Fcitx5 is the standard for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean input methods. Crashes in Chromium-based apps were a real pain point. This widens Mango's usability well beyond the typical dwm crowd.
Other fixes include a reduced spawn delay, a corrected IPC client count, and a new focusdir_only_zone_overlap option for controlling focus movement between zones.
The 0.16.x series has been feature-heavy. The 0.15.x series was a long stabilization phase before 0.16.0. We might be due for a similar cool-down, though DreamMaoMao's recent pace makes that hard to predict.
Head here to the changelog on GitHub for full details. The documentation at mangowm.github.io covers the new config options and keybindings.
