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Release News

First Orbit

v0.1.0

Halley's first public release is here.

This is the foundation of a spatial Wayland compositor built around Fields, nodes, clusters, and intentional multi-monitor navigation. Each monitor gets its own independent infinite canvas. Windows live as nodes on that canvas, can be grouped into clusters you create deliberately, and can decay gracefully when they drift out of focus.

Halley is still early, and there is a lot more ahead. This project is a long marathon, not a sprint, but this release marks the beginning.

Included

In This Release

Per-monitor Fields

Each display has its own independent infinite 2D canvas with pan and zoom.

Nodes and decay

Windows exist as nodes on the Field and can dim or collapse over time when they move significantly outside the configurable focus ring.

Focus Ring

The active eye-shaped region that defines where windows stay active and where decay begins.

Clusters and cores

Halley's answer to workspaces: intentionally built groups of windows that collapse into a core on the Field and can be re-entered later.

Cluster layouts

Support for both weighted tiling and stacking layouts inside clusters.

Trail navigation

Move backward and forward through recent focus history.

Bearings

Directional overlays and navigation cues to help orient movement around the current view.

Jump / Field Jump

Move grabbed windows across monitors between independent Fields.

IPC

Unix socket control via $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/halley/halley.sock.

Xwayland support

On-demand X11 compatibility through xwayland-satellite.

Bootstrapped configuration

On first launch, Halley generates a documented halley.rune config and inserts detected tty monitors into the viewport section.

Installation

Get v0.1.0

AUR

AUR
yay -S halley
AUR
paru -S halley

Development Version

dev package
yay -S halley-git
dev package
paru -S halley-git

From Source

source build
git clone https://github.com/saltnpepper97/halley
cd halley
cargo build --release

Notes

Still Growing

  • This is an initial release, not the final shape of the project.
  • More systems, refinement, polish, and iteration are still ahead.
  • Halley is already usable and real, but it is also still growing into itself.

Thanks

To The Early Orbit

Thanks to everyone following the project this early.

There is a long way to go, and that is part of the point.

First orbit starts here.