WIP: Multi-platform

[hexadecimal233]

Hey, openmeters an indeed cool software and pretty mature right now, but there are some limitations with newcomers 🫤
The biggest is the linux-only, currently only PipeWire + Wayland is supported.

After taking a look into the project structure, there are some points worth decoupling:

Universal

• visual: the ui rendering part
• persistence: configuration, window layout, window state, theme, etc.
• core: dsp algorithms and abstractions
• ui: display the app ui, with WM-specific layouting abstractions

Platform-specific

• app: the frontend implementation for Audio backends with specific configuration and WM interaction

Note that the window handing on different OS can also be very different, abstracting the configuration might also be necessary.

---

Maintaining downstream forks for can lead to lag (AI slop forks are NG), so I'm asking for comments //w//
If everything looks good, I may take a look into the Windows and macOS support and implementing those parts afterwards.

[httpsworldview]

Hey, thanks for opening an issue. I've thought about Windows and macOS
support before, but I have held off for a few reasons.

OpenMeters was designed from the start as a Linux + PipeWire
application. PipeWire is central to audio capture, per-application
routing, virtual sink behavior, device capture, etc.

Supporting Windows or macOS would therefore require new platform
backends for WASAPI and CoreAudio, plus native packaging, CI, testing,
and probably Windows signing/macOS notarization if I wanted to do
things properly.

A lot of the current code reflects the Linux-only design. In
particular, the PipeWire backend would need to become one backend
among several, and the routing/device/app model would need to be
abstracted. Windowing would also need platform specific work,
especially because Wayland layer-shell bar mode has no direct
Windows/macOS equivalent, so I'd probably need to roll something
bespoke (I could be wrong).

The main areas affected would include (at least):

• src/infra/pipewire/*
• src/domain.rs
• src/main.rs
• src/ui/config.rs
• src/ui/app.rs
• src/ui/app/message.rs
• src/ui/app/windowing.rs
• src/persistence/*
• src/visuals/registry.rs
• CI, release workflows, packaging, and documentation

Ultimately, I do not use Windows or macOS, so I cannot properly test
or maintain those platforms. I would rather support one platform
reliably than try to juggle everything at once.

For now, Windows and macOS support are out of scope for me personally.