--- title: Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window description: Part 3 of a series on writing a Wayland compositor from scratch using wlroots. Covers setting up the wl_compositor global, iterating over wlr_surfaces, and... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window | daily.dev og:description: Part 3 of a series on writing a Wayland compositor from scratch using wlroots. Covers setting up the wl_compositor global, iterating over wlr_surfaces, and... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/TYQ7TvXxg.png og:image:alt: Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window **[Drew DeVault](https://daily.dev/sources/drewdevault)** · 7 min read · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Part 3 of a series on writing a Wayland compositor from scratch using wlroots. Covers setting up the wl_compositor global, iterating over wlr_surfaces, and rendering windows using wlr_renderer. Explains the matrix projection math needed to map surface pixel coordinates to screen coordinates, using wlr_matrix_project_box and wlr_render_with_matrix. Also introduces xdg_shell_v6 as a surface role mechanism, with a note that full xdg_shell support will be covered in the next article. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#c](https://daily.dev/tags/c) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg"},"datePublished":"2026-03-31T12:27:58.898Z","dateModified":"2026-03-31T12:32:43.326Z","description":"Part 3 of a series on writing a Wayland compositor from scratch using wlroots. Covers setting up the wl_compositor global, iterating over wlr_surfaces, and...","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9e0e7eaeac1bdb41d0b6a95e785dd503?_a=AQAEuop","thumbnailUrl":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/f_auto,q_auto/v1/posts/9e0e7eaeac1bdb41d0b6a95e785dd503?_a=AQAEuop","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Drew DeVault","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Drew DeVault","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--BGhGBu0U--/f_auto,q_auto/v1774960025/logos/drewdevault?_a=BAMAMiWQ0","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/drewdevault"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/writing-a-wayland-compositor-part-3-rendering-a-window-tyq7tvxxg","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux,c","timeRequired":"PT7M"} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Drew DeVault","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/drewdevault"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Writing a Wayland Compositor, Part 3: Rendering a window"}]} ```