Râu is written entirely in Elisp, even the communication with the wayland socket. External (to Emacs) Wayland Windows feel like Emacs buffers. Thus an Emacs user can use the already known keybindings and mechanisms from Emacs to manage windows.
See rau.org for more information.
Every output (screen, monitor) gets one fullscreen Emacs frame assigned that stays in the background. Every external Wayland Window gets one Emacs buffer assigned. When this buffer is displayed, the external Wayland Window for this buffer gets displayed exactly on top of the buffer.
“Râu” means “River” in Romanian and is not to be confused with “rău” meaning “bad”, “vile” or “vicious” nor with the German word “rau” meaning “rough”, “harsh” or “raw”.
- Michael Bauer for the Emacs Wayland Client, presented at EmacsConf 2022.
- Tazjin for Reka, predecessor of Râu, which however used Rust to bind to libwayland.
- Isaac Freund for River, which makes writing a Wayland WM very easy.
Check the category Window Manager in the Emacs Wiki for alternatives to Râu.