qtwaylandcompositor-overview.qdoc

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// Copyright (C) 2017 The Qt Company Ltd.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: LicenseRef-Qt-Commercial OR GFDL-1.3-no-invariants-only
 
/*!
  \page qtwaylandcompositor-index.html
  \title Qt Wayland Compositor
  \brief An API to develop display servers that support the Wayland protocol.
 
  The Qt Wayland Compositor is a module that provides convenient and powerful
  QML and C++ APIs for developing custom display servers based on the
  \l {https://wayland.freedesktop.org/}{Wayland} protocol. The display server,
  often called a compositor, displays content from client applications that
  support the Wayland protocol.
 
  Wayland's design philosophy is to keep the core protocol simple and minimal.
  Developers can then expand on this core protocol with use-case-specific
  extensions. Qt Wayland Compositor supports many common extensions by default,
  and also has APIs to enable the creation of new, custom extensions.
 
  Typically, a compositor written with Qt Wayland Compositor becomes a
  subsystem inside a larger application manager process. Qt Wayland Compositor
  provides the APIs to communicate with clients and display their content on
  the screen. The QML APIs contain high-level APIs that easily integrate with
  the rest of Qt, enabling convenient animations, effects, and UI through
  Qt Quick. There are also C++ APIs available - if you need more low-level
  access.
 
  An application manager would typically implement additional features such as
  application life cycle, virtual keyboard input, security, and Inter-Process
  Communication (IPC). Qt provides the APIs that can be used to develop the
  remaining parts of an application manager in other modules. The
  \l {https://www.qt.io/qt-automotive-suite/}{Qt Automotive Suite} provides
  \l{https://doc.qt.io/QtApplicationManager}{Qt Application Manager}, which is a complete application manager that
  includes a compositor developed using Qt Wayland Compositor.
 
  For more information on Wayland, see \l{Wayland and Qt}.
 
  \section1 Features of Qt Wayland Compositor
 
  The Qt Wayland Compositor includes features necessary to create a compositor:
 
  \list
    \li A QML API to display and manipulate client content, fully integrated
        with all the features in Qt Quick.
    \li A C++ API for low-level access and control.
    \li Support for common extensions, including XDG Shell and IVI Application.
    \li APIs to easily expand the support for custom extensions.
  \endlist
 
  \section1 Environment Variables and Command-line Arguments
 
  The Qt Wayland Compositor recognizes the following environment variables and
  command-line arguments:
 
  \list
  \li Environment variables:
      \list
      \li \b QT_WAYLAND_HARDWARE_INTEGRATION Selects the hardware integration
          plugin to use.
      \li \b QT_WAYLAND_CLIENT_BUFFER_INTEGRATION Selects the client buffer
          integration plugin to use.
      \li \b QT_WAYLAND_SERVER_BUFFER_INTEGRATION Selects the server
          integration plugin to use.
      \endlist
  \li Command-line arguments:
      \list
      \li \c{--wayland-socket-name} Overrides the default socket name used for
          communicating with clients.
      \endlist
  \endlist
 
  \section1 Running the Wayland compositor
 
  As long as it does not depend on any unavailable platform-specific features, the compositor can
  easily be tested on an X11-based desktop system. This can be useful during development, both for
  simplified debugging and efficient turn-around on trying out new features.
 
  Qt Wayland supports several backends for sharing graphics buffers between clients and the
  server. The main one is:
 
  \list
    \li \c{wayland-egl}: This is the default backend and should be preferred whenever possible.
  It requires support in the OpenGL driver on the system for this to work.
  \endlist
 
  Other backends may be selected by setting the \c QT_WAYLAND_CLIENT_BUFFER_INTEGRATION environment variable.
 
  \note If Qt Wayland Compositor is unable to initialize the client buffer backend, then it will
  fall back to using the "shared memory" backend (based on \c{wl_shm}) as a fail-safe. This backend
  will use CPU memory for sharing the graphics buffers and copy the data back and forth as needed.
  This has performance implications, especially on high density screens and limited graphics
  hardware. When investigating performance issues with Qt Wayland Compositor, start by checking that
  the correct client buffer integration is used.
 
  Also bear in mind that if your system is already running a Wayland compositor, you may have to set
  \c XDG_RUNTIME_DIR to point to a different location. If this is the case, you will see warnings
  when starting the compositor. The \c XDG_RUNTIME_DIR can point to any accessible location which
  is not already in use.
 
  For instance, if you want to run the \l{Fancy Compositor}{fancy-compositor}
  example with the \c wayland-egl backend, you could use the following command line:
 
  \code
  % XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=~/my_temporary_runtime QT_XCB_GL_INTEGRATION=xcb_egl QT_WAYLAND_CLIENT_BUFFER_INTEGRATION=wayland-egl ./fancy-compositor
  \endcode
 
  The client can subsequently be run on the compositor by setting the same \c XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and
  by passing "-platform wayland" as a command line argument. The \c QT_QPA_PLATFORM environment
  variable can also be used to select the Wayland QPA plugin on the client side.
 
  \note In most cases, the client will adapt to the same OpenGL as the server when it connects.
  However, when running with the EGL backend on some specific drivers, it is required that the
  initialization happens earlier. If you encounter this problem, you may pass
  "-platform wayland-egl" instead to pre-initialize the client to EGL.
 
  \section1 Troubleshooting
 
  Sometimes, when you are developing a complex compositor, you may encounter issues that require
  further investigation.
 
  Setting the \c WAYLAND_DEBUG environment variable to "1" will enable log output for the Wayland
  library itself. This can be very useful, for example, when debugging custom extensions to the
  Wayland protocol. It will show you exactly which events and requests are being passed between
  the client and the server, as well as timestamps for these.
 
  In addition, Qt has logging categories \c qt.waylandcompositor.* and \c qt.qpa.wayland.* to
  enable additional logging. The latter should be set on the client side, as it enables logging
  from the Wayland QPA plugin.
 
  \section1 Examples
 
  Take a look at the \l{Qt Wayland Compositor Examples} to learn how these APIs
  can be used to write custom compositors.
 
  \section1 API Reference
 
  The Qt Wayland Compositor can be used from C++ or QML:
 
  \list
    \li \l{Qt Wayland Compositor QML Types}
    \li \l{Qt Wayland Compositor C++ Classes}
  \endlist
 
  \section1 Module Evolution
  \l{Porting to Qt 6 - Qt Wayland Compositor} lists important changes in the
  module API and functionality that were done for the Qt 6 series of Qt.
 
  \section1 Licenses and Attributions
 
  Qt Wayland Compositor and the Qt Wayland integration plugin
  are available under commercial licenses from \l{The Qt Company}.
 
  In addition, Qt Wayland Compositor is available under the
  \l{GNU General Public License, version 3}, while
  the Qt Wayland integration plugin is available under the
  \l{GNU General Public License, version 3} or the
  \l{GNU General Public License, version 2}.
 
  See \l{Qt Licensing} for further details.
 
  Qt Wayland Compositor and the Qt Wayland integration plugin
  use protocol definitions under following permissive licenses:
 
  \generatelist{groupsbymodule attributions-qtwaylandcompositor}
 
*/