v13-rc1 (2025-Dec-09)

New features

• Separate the "geometry" animation trigger into "size" and "position" to allow finer-grained control. "geometry" is kept as an alias for setting both "size" and "position".
• Add a "urgent" target that can be used in rules to match urgent (according to ICCCM) windows. (#1445)
• New "shadow-color" per-window option can now be used in rules to give each window a different shadow color. (#257)
• Added new animation trigger color, which can now be used to transition window shadow-color changes. (#257)
• Add support for using custom shaders when rendering the desktop background. (#1440)
• New variables "window-blur-opacity-before", and "window-blur-opacity" are now available in animation scripts. (#919)
• New per-window option blur-opacity can now be used in rules. (#919)
• Macro definitions can now be specified when setting shader in window rules. (#1066)

Deprecations

• --legacy-backends is now deprecated. Setting it no longer has an effect.
• resize-damage, glx-no-stencil and glx-no-rebind-pixmap are now deprecated, because they only works on legacy backends.
• Removed several options that have been deprecated for a long time, this includes:
  • glx-fshader-win
  • glx-swap-method
  • glx-use-gpushader4
  • menu-opacity
  • vsync-aggressive
  • respect-prop-shadow
  • sw-opti
  • clear-shadow

Behavior changes

• The desktop background image is no longer smeared to fill the screen. If it's too small, it will be too small. (#1464)

Bug fixes

• Fix sometimes window property changes aren't reflected in picom.
• Fix shadow-opacity being applied twice. You may need to adjust your shadow-opacity settings.
• Properly fix the longstanding "request too big" problem when uploading shadow images. (Previous workaround: 69b3eee) (#257)
• Fix window frames not being blended correctly when using frame-opacity with saved-image-blend.
• Fix shadow not being correctly masked when scaled. (#1389)
• Fix misaligned shadow and window when they are scaled. (#1389)
• Fix unexpected relative movement between shadow and window when they are scaled. (#1389)
• background blur does not cover the entire background if the window has rounded corner and is scaled.
• Fix shaders in window-shader-fg-rule being erroneously reported as failed to load.
• Fix --blur-background-fixed having no effect. (#1402)
• Fix assertion failure when running with some window managers (e.g. qtile) and no window is focused (#1384)

Other changes

• Hide picom from menus by default (#1155)

Internal changes

• Breaking change to backend API, to allow better image creation, and applying tints to windows.
• Refactor shadow rendering, preparing for dynamic shadow colors.
• Backend API 2.0 breaking change, backend_mask_image.origin is now a vec2.
• Backend API 2.0 breaking change, backend_blur_args now has source_mask_scale.
• Backend API 2.0 breaking change, backend_blit_args.shader is now shader_handle instead of void *.

(Sorry, I shouldn't have moved the v12.4, this will not happen again. This release cycle is short to minimize the impact.)

Changes since v12.4

Bug fixes

• Fix assertion failure when running with some window managers (e.g. qtile) and no window is focused (#1384)

(Note: the v12.4 git tag has been moved at 2024-Nov-12 09:42 UTC to fix wrong version number displayed in picom --version)

Changes since v12.3

Improvements

• Better workaround for a NVIDIA qurik, fix high CPU usage when screen is off (#1265)
• Avoid using xrender convolution in all cases, should improve shadow performance for most users. (#1349)

Bug fixes

• Fix leak of saved window images.

Build fixes

• Fix build on arm32 (#1355)

Changes since v12.2

Improvements

• Extend workaround for missing hardware accelerated convolution to more drivers (#1349)

Bug fixes

• Fix memory corruption that can happen when handling window property changes (#1350)
• Fix force-win-blend having no effect (#1354)
• Fix shadow being rendered incorrectly in xrender backend (#1352)

Changes since v12.1

Improvements

• fly-out/slide-out animation presets no longer cause jumps in window opacity

Bug fixes

• Random delays before screen is updated (#1345 #1330)
• Fix building on 32-bit systems (#1346)
• Fix blank screen on 32-bit systems
• Fix fly-in/fly-out animation presets so they work with directions other than up and left

Changes since v12

Bug fixes

• picom stops rendering correctly after monitor configuration changes (#1338, thanks to @Suyooo)

Contributors

• @Suyooo

🎉 🎉

For the main change log, see v12-rc1

Thanks to all the developers that contributed!

• @absolutelynothelix
• @Monsterovich
• @Lenivaya
• @pijulius
• @yukiteruamano

Highlights

• Animation support!

  This version of picom includes a flexible scripting system that can be used to define all kinds of animations. See more here

  geometry-change.mp4

• Unified rule system

  Manage all per-window option in one place. See more here

Known problems

• Users of newer NVIDIA drivers might see log spams related to SGI video sync (#1265)
• Users of NVIDIA GPUs might see their window shadows disappear after suspend/resume (#924)

Changes since v12-rc4

Bug fixes

• Fix crash related to window leader updates (#1337 + extra).
• Remove an invalid assertion.

Contributors

• @pijulius
• @Monsterovich
• @Lenivaya
• @absolutelynothelix
• @yukiteruamano

(Because of #1334, I decided to do an extra rc release)

Changes since v12-rc3

Bug fixes

• Windows become completely black when rules and inactive-dim are set at the same time
• Fix segmentation fault during unredirection if the geometry change animation is used (#1333, thanks to @Monsterovich)
• Fix many rare race conditions in the window management code (#1334)

Contributors

• @Monsterovich

(This is likely the last release candidate for v12)

Changes since v12-rc2

Bug fixes

• transparent-clipping has no effect (#1317)
• unredir in window rules not being parsed correctly
• Changing window opacity with picom-trans does not take effect immediately (#1315)

Documentation

• Document behavior change around rounded corners and fullscreen windows

Known issues

• transparent-clipping has no effect (#1317)
• Change of window opacity property doesn't take effect immediately (#1315)

Change since v12-rc1

Bug fixes

• Setting corner-radius to 0 cause all windows to not render: #1311
• Setting corner-radius causes windows to have a 1-pixel transparent border
• Window shaders no longer work: #1312