The KClock app for KDE Plasma over time has obtained quite a lot of updates, like higher integration with KRunner and a devoted background service (kclockd) for managing alarms. Now, it seems to be like KDE devs wish to add one thing cool: pop-out timers utilizing the brand new Image-in-Image protocol for Wayland.

This all began from a easy statement. Kai Uwe Broulik, a KDE developer, noticed somebody utilizing a small timer window throughout a presentation and thought it was a good suggestion. The issue is that attaining this sort of “at all times on high” conduct is dealt with in another way between the previous X11 show server and the newer Wayland.

With X11, an software may just about do no matter it needed. If a program needed to attract a drop-down menu, it might simply create a borderless window, place it in a selected spot, and seize all consumer enter. Wayland operates on a special philosophy.

As Broulik notes, below Wayland, the applying describes what it needs, and the compositor will get to resolve the right way to deal with it. A drop-down menu is an XDG Popup. The applying tells the compositor which button spawned it, and the compositor handles the location and conduct.

That is way more safe and constant. It additionally means an software can’t simply resolve to maintain its window on high of all the pieces else. This restriction prevents an internet browser from implementing an overlay video participant below Wayland.

To get round this in a standardized method, a correct Wayland help mannequin for Image-in-Image, or PiP, was wanted. Enter the xx-pip-v1 protocol. It’s a new protocol designed particularly for creating floating PiP home windows, and KWin, Plasma’s compositor, lately gained help for it. As a result of it’s an experimental protocol, its use is gated behind an setting variable, KWIN_WAYLAND_SUPPORT_XX_PIP_V1.

A brand new protocol is ok for demos, nevertheless it wants an actual software to seek out its weaknesses. So Broulik applied it in KClock. This work permits KClock to supply pop-out timers and even a pop-out stopwatch in a small PiP window.

The consumer may get system-wide choices to manage the place the PiP window seems, or if it seems in any respect, and have that setting apply to each single software that makes use of the protocol. You possibly can try the merge request on GitLab for extra technical particulars about this function.