Compiling

In order to build KWin against KDE Frameworks 5, one needs to have a working frameworks setup. For this follow the steps outlined in Frameworks/Building.

Once frameworks is set up, kde-workspace can be compiled. At the time of this writing the development happens in branch frameworks-scratch of the kde-workspace git repository.

To get KWin working properly on Frameworks there are many tasks to be solved. These tasks can be found in the KWin/Frameworks Trello board. If you want to work on a task please contact Martin Gräßlin (mgraesslin on IRC, email mgraesslin at kde dot org) to be added to the board and assign a task to yourself.

Please see KWin/Hacking for further information about the structure of KWin.

Running

Starting

Follow the runtime instructions in Frameworks/Building - especially ensure that you started D-Bus. Otherwise KWin 5 and a running KWin 4 might conflict on the DBus. Apart from that there is nothing special to consider. KWin 5 can be started just like KWin 4. If a window manager is already running, use:

kwin --replace &

Known Limitations

Aurorae window decoration is not working
Activities support is missing
Configuration module for desktop effects is not enabled

Configuring

Configuration is fully supported, though desktop effects kcm is not available. Please use new kwincompositing module instead.