Hi everyone
I would like to ask if there is a chance to implement a new fractional scaling protocol for Wayland in the new version of GNOME’s Mutter?
Could it make Gnome’s scaling better?
GNOME is my favorite desktop environment (on external monitor) and GNOME Devs are doing a great job but with 100% scaling, is too small on a 15 inch laptop screen and the use of fractional scaling causes blurring and other issues that makes the DE really hard to use on laptops
The lack of this feature forces me to stay on Windows (and I think - not only me)
Working on better scaling would be a huge change for many users, as almost all desktop environments have big problems with it
Can you tell me what does it mean for users? As far as I know, GTK does not support fractional scaling at all (HiDPI fractional scaling support (#4345) · Issues · GNOME / gtk · GitLab)
Will that protocol make GNOME apps like Nautilus non blurry on for example 125% scaling? Is there any chance for that?
Wayland protocols cannot by themselves fix issues coming from the app side. They are just a blueprint for how the compositor and apps can go about solving a problem, to actually fix the problem the apps will have to be changed to make use of the protocol. Generally, for big changes to the display server the updates go like this:
Protocol → Compositor → Toolkit → App
So usually you will have to wait for all those parties to agree to support it, and then wait longer for the feature to propagate.
From what I can see, the protocol is already merged, so it will work in the next version of Mutter (44)
The problem is that GTK doesn’t support fractional scaling (only integer) and without implementing fractional scaling in GTK we won’t be able to really take advantage of changes in Mutter and Wayland
It’s sad because without scaling GNOME on high resolution screens is pretty much useless (Making font bigger looks ugly)
I know fractional scaling in Wayland will be supported by QT . The implementation of the protocol to KWin is in progress, so there is a chance that the next version of KDE Plasma will fully support fractional scaling on Wayland (For this reason, I am considering switching to KDE)
I am not a Mutter maintainer so I cannot say any ETA. I just looked at that PR which is not merged yet.
GTK and Qt supporting fractional scaling is also not enough, the apps will also need to be changed to support it if they do not already, so that will take even longer.