[macOS] Flickering when closing tabs

[jason5122]

When closing alacritty tabs, there is sometimes flickering. I think this is a regression since the older alacritty version I'm using doesn't have this issue (or it's not as noticeable).

Is this a winit or alacritty issue? Is there any interest in me investigating further?

Screen.Recording.2023-10-07.at.1.37.47.AM.mov

System

OS: macOS
Version: alacritty 0.13.0-dev (ace987f)

[chrisduerr]

Looking at the frames for this issue, it seems like the issue is with the Alacritty instance being closed becoming transparent before the tab is removed:

Did you recently update your macOS version? Can you try to bisect?

[jason5122]

I'm on macOS 13.5 and I haven't updated in a little while.

I did git bisect and I found the faulty commit! It's 2377c0a (Bump winit to 0.28.3). This is from all the way back in 3/17/23, so it's actually not that recent.

However, even the "good" commits can rarely flicker if you spam opening/closing tabs enough. Bisecting some more, it seems that 1c878a0 is the start of this.

The commit that introduces the new window feature, d5b2dac, is perfect though. There is absolutely zero flickering.

It turns out I didn't notice until now because my fork uses .with_transparent(false) in display/window.rs, which makes the flickering opaque and very hard to notice.

This seems like a winit issue. I can try looking into it more when I have the time!

[kchibisov]

@jasonhan-vassar could you also try #7220 ?

[jason5122]

Sure thing. I tried it and it still seems to flicker:

Screen.Recording.2023-10-07.at.2.44.11.PM.mov

[mrded]

Hold on. How do you open tabs? :)
Seems like I missed something. I thought Alacritty will never have tabs.

[chrisduerr]

Alacritty will never have built-in tabs. But macOS supports tiling natively in the OS and we leverage this.

[mrded]

macOS supports tiling natively in the OS and we leverage this.

How can I use it?

[chrisduerr]

You need to use the SpawnNewWindow binding or IPC command to create new windows rather than instances and configure macOS to group multiple windows of the same application as tabs.

[mrded]

Thank you! here is how to add tabs to anything:
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/mac-help/mchla4695cce/mac

TL;DR: Prefer tabs when opening documents: Always

[cattyhouse]

same issue

ProductName:            macOS
ProductVersion:         14.2.1
BuildVersion:           23C71

alacritty 0.13.1 (fe2a3c5)

[cartesius68]

same issue

ProductName:		macOS
ProductVersion:		14.3.1
BuildVersion:		23D60

alacritty 0.14.0-dev (cb3a79db)

[nbuesing]

new to Alacritty, love it.

Seeing this flickering as well

0.13.2
Sanoma (14.4.1)
Mac Pro M1 Silicon

[nixpulvis]

While #7928 doesn't fix this issue, it does reduce its noticeability if you're not using a transparent window.