I can help with the virtual desktop switcher...

Edit "~/.config/labwc/rc.xml" to add the following:

<!-- desktop pager settings -->

<windowSwitcher show="yes" preview="yes" outlines="yes" allWorkspaces="yes"> <fields> <field content="type" width="25%" /> <field content="trimmed_identifier" width="25%" /> <field content="title" width="50%" /> </fields> </windowSwitcher>

<desktops> <number>4</number> <prefix>ws</prefix> </desktops>

  <keyboard>
    <default />

    <keybind key="C-A-Left">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="left" wrap="yes"/>
    </keybind>
    <keybind key="C-A-Right">
      <action name="GoToDesktop" to="right" wrap="yes"/>
    </keybind>

  </keyboard>

You can only really do that by forking though, so it's probably not going to happen. That said, the unspoken part of that is that it supports Wayland protocols for the features that would be provided by dbus/swaysock/etc. so you can just use "stock" tools like wlr-randr and sfwbar to manage outputs or provide a task switcher. Some of these protocols are still wlroots extensions (though that doesn't mean you won't find them supported elsewhere) but increasingly those are being replaced with standard protocols (with the caveat that GNOME Mutter will probably never implement any of them, but I'm not sure if anyone cares; GNOME is probably going to wind up just being it's own thing that is technically Wayland but not how anyone else does it.)

(P.S.: I suspect Swaysock might've never existed if it were not for the fact that Sway is more or less a direct recreation of i3wm as a Wayland compositor; it is the equivalent of i3 IPC. You can and should just use Wayland protocols even in Sway where possible.)

The wlroots extensions are one attempt at creating such a standard, being used by pretty much all compositors except for KDE and Gnome. The issue with that is of course that all wlroots compositors combined have a tiny market share compared to either.

> rather than using something standard (at least on Linux) like dbus.

What standard? Other compositors have their own specific protocol to talk to it even if it's done other dbus.

Soon: There are now 15 competing standards.

Right... I do not follow how using a standard creates fragmentation.

Well, that's openbox for you. Openbox though used the XML quite nicely to enable GUI configuration (never looked into the code, I assume they did not implement it just with regexps...), so there is that advantage at least.

Having made the switch from sway to labwc nearly a year ago I've edited the config maybe all of 3 times

It's xml but at least it's plain and well documented with sensible defaults

Nobody seems to be addressing the themability of the window borders/titlebar itself anymore. It's weird, because that was a big part of the Cambrian explosion of X11 window managers back in the day-- so many options and so much customization. It was a selling point-- people would go out of their way to run things like Enlightenment with over-the-top themes.

Even labwc's stated "let's try to be Openbox-theme-compatible" goal is highly limited (see support tickets with various missing features) and plenty of other compositors seem to have just limited, baked-in decorations or promises "a plugin ecosystem will appear and fill the hole".

The closest I've seen is Wayland Maker, which at least has a clear focus of "let's copy a recognizable X11 look and feel" but it's a few releases shy of daily-driver, and arguably targets a relatively low-hanging fruit (WindowMaker lacks some of the elaborate scriptability and functionality of FVWM)

I suppose part of this might be because of Client-Side Decoration, where half the software says "I reject your titlebar and substitute my own", but I feel like we're nowhere even at "You can easily get a 1:1 pixel match of the LOOK of your FVWM/CTWM/Openbox desktop", let alone all the weird little feel rules and tools that have developed over the decades. Does anyone even do a pager or equivalent for FvwmButtons on Wayland, or is it all uber-minimal "bars"?

TBH, that's why I try Wayland for about 20 minutes every 3 months and bounce off. I feel like I'm being told I have to accept less. Even if I accept the weird compromises Wayland expects (replacing direct media player and volume control access to hotkeys with a set of compositor bindings and workaround tools, finding a substitute for XScreensaver to protect/exercise my expensive new OLED monitor, probably shop for a new terminal), I still can't make it look and feel like home.