Visual Studio Code: Enable native Wayland support

vscode-wayland.md

Native wayland support is now working consistently for me in VSCode, giving much better text rendering. Unfortunately, it's still hidden behind some command-line flags.

By adding some files to /usr/local/*, you can ensure that VSCode always launches with these flags.

Adding launch flags to VSCode

Assuming that the VSCode launcher is /usr/bin/code-oss (as is the case in Arch):

1. Create /usr/local/bin/code-oss with the following content:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/code-oss --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland "$@"

2. chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/code-oss
3. In /usr/local/share/applications/, create modified versions of any vscode entries in /usr/share/applications/*.desktop, which is where many launchers get their application info. Add the new flags to the Exec= lines, e.g. for Arch:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/share/applications/
for f in code-oss code-oss-url-handler; do
    sed -E 's:^(Exec=[^ ]+)(.*)$:\1 --enable-features=UseOzonePlatform --ozone-platform=wayland\2:' < /usr/share/applications/$f.desktop | sudo tee /usr/local/share/applications/$f.desktop
done

4. If your distro provides simlinks to the "real" vscode launcher, like code to launch code-oss, override those too:

ln -s /usr/local/bin/code-oss /usr/local/bin/code

Troubleshooting

• restart your application launcher
  • for Gnome: update-desktop-database /usr/local/share/applications
• ensure that your $PATH includes /usr/local/bin somewhere before /usr/bin
• check that /usr/local/bin/code-oss is executable

Another way is by setting the ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT env variable to capture electron apps globally.
You can test it executing ELECTRON_OZONE_PLATFORM_HINT=auto <program>. Then set it permanently.

Ref: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Wayland#Electron

Thanks @marcorichetta

Thanks @marcorichetta

Works! Thanks!

For me, while it does switch to wayland (as evident by my wayland-native app launched from within vs code), text rendering actually becomes much worse. With it, small text with fractional scaling gets increasingly blurry, without it, it's always crisp and clear.

Interestingly, this is heavily dependant on fractional scaling.
On my 2560x1600 screen, at 150% fractional scaling (and most fractional scales really), this change absolutely destroys the text clarity.
However, at 145% fractional scaling, it is almost on par with X11 in text clarity, only slightly worse with very small text that I wouldn't use anyway. So I'll be using this fix and 145% scale from now on.
Just a very weird behaviour, especially since X11 is very clear at all scales, and definitely check with your settings carefully if this actually improves anything.