home-manager/docs/release-notes/rl-2003.md

# Release 20.03 {#sec-release-20.03}

The 20.03 release branch became the stable branch in April, 2020.

## Highlights {#sec-release-20.03-highlights}

This release has the following notable changes:

-   Assigning a list to the [home.file](#opt-home.file),
    [xdg.dataFile](#opt-xdg.dataFile) options is
    now deprecated and will produce a warning message if used.
    Specifically, if your configuration currently contains something
    like

    ``` nix
    home.file = [
      {
        target = ".config/foo.txt";
        text = "bar";
      }
    ]
    ```

    then it should be updated to instead use the equivalent attribute
    set form

    ``` nix
    home.file = {
      ".config/foo.txt".text = "bar";
    }
    ```

    Support for the list form will be removed in Home Manager version
    20.09.

-   The `lib` function attribute given to modules is now enriched with
    an attribute `hm` containing extra library functions specific for
    Home Manager. More specifically, `lib.hm` is now the same as
    `config.lib` and should be the preferred choice since it is more
    robust.

    Therefore, if your configuration makes use of, for example,
    `config.lib.dag` to create activation script blocks, it is
    recommended to change to `lib.hm.dag`.

    Note, in the unlikely case that you are

    -   using Home Manager's NixOS or nix-darwin module,

    -   have made your own Home Manager module containing an top-level
        option named `config` or `options`, and

    -   assign to this option in your system configuration inside a
        plain attribute set, i.e., without a function argument,

    then you must update your configuration to perform the option
    assignment inside a `config` attribute. For example, instead of

    ``` nix
    home-manager.users.jane = { config = "foo"; };
    ```

    use

    ``` nix
    home-manager.users.jane = { config.config = "foo"; };
    ```

-   The `services.compton` module has been deprecated and instead the
    new module `services.picom` should be used. This is because Nixpkgs
    no longer packages compton, and instead packages the (mostly)
    compatible fork called picom.

-   The list form of the [programs.ssh.matchBlocks](#opt-programs.ssh.matchBlocks) option has
    been deprecated and configurations requiring match blocks in a
    defined order should switch to using DAG entries instead. For
    example, a configuration

    ``` nix
    programs.ssh.matchBlocks = [
      {
        host = "alpha.foo.com";
        user = "jd";
      }
      {
        host = "*.foo.com";
        user = "john.doe";
      }
    ];
    ```

    can be expressed along the lines of

    ``` nix
    programs.ssh.matchBlocks = {
      "*.example.com" = {
        user = "john.doe";
      }
      "alpha.example.com" = lib.hm.dag.entryBefore ["*.example.com"] {
        user = "jd";
      }
    };
    ```

    Support for the list form will be removed in Home Manager version
    20.09.

## State Version Changes {#sec-release-20.03-state-version-changes}

The state version in this release includes the changes below. These
changes are only active if the `home.stateVersion` option is set to
\"20.03\" or later.

-   The [programs.zsh.history.path](#opt-programs.zsh.history.path) option is no longer
    prepended by `$HOME`, which allows specifying absolute paths, for
    example, using the xdg module. Also, the default value is fixed to
    `$HOME/.zsh_history` and `dotDir` path is not prepended to it
    anymore.

-   The newsboat module will now default in displaying `queries` before
    `urls` in its main window. This makes sense in the case when one has
    a lot of URLs and few queries.