Compiz Blog

Brightness and Saturation

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:33:03 -0700

BS - a plugin by Moppsy to change the brightness and saturation of windows, like transset, but less transparent. The post is here:

http://www.compiz.net/viewtopic.php?id=629

Compiz Without Borders

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:33:03 -0700

Moppsy has a plugin to remove the border from a window:

I found myself wanting a way to remove the frame window from an application, so I created this.
Here is is for anyone that might find this useful.

Get it here: http://www.compiz.net/viewtopic.php?id=721

Centre Window

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 20:33:03 -0700

Moppsy strikes again!

A little patch to centre a window
http://www.compiz.net/viewtopic.php?id=733

ToDo on the Cube

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:10 -0700

This tool, by mattdev121, allows a to-do list to be displayed on the top of the cube:
from http://www.compiz.net/viewtopic.php?id=793:

You need to store template.svg somewhere in $RUNPATH, and make sure the settings are set properly (as you can see, i used .xgl/todo in my home directory and pico as my editor )

It should work fine on most systems, you just need gconf-tool2 (and a compiz that reads from gconf), plus rsvg-convert that comes with any svg-enabled system

Get the code here:

Widgets!

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:10 -0700

David R implemented widgets, an application can be set as a ‘widget’ and that makes it hideable/showable by pressing F9.

QuinnStorm made a patch for Cairoclock (by MacSlow) to turn it into a widget – as an example of how it ought to be done. Her patch is here:

Introduction to Compiz/XGL

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

What is it/are they/are you talking about?

This blog is devoted to the developments in two packages/programs: Xgl and Compiz. To see all the latest plugins and patches just check back to the front page http://compiz.blogspot.com

Xgl and Compiz were developed by David Reveman, first indpendently and then at Novell. Both are included in OpenSUSE (and of course the commercial SLED) which is supported by Novell. I will let them explain themselves :)

OpenSUSE description of XGL

Xgl is an Xserver that accelerates drawing operations by using OpenGL.

OpenSuse wiki on Compiz

Compiz combines together a window manager and a composite manager using OpenGL for rendering.

The best way to understand why I am blogging about it is to look at some of the videos. This stuff makes your desktop seriously cool (and, of course, allows you to be more productive :P)

XGL is not to be confused with AIGLX - a RedHat championed set of extensions to the current X server to achieve a similar effect. Compiz can run on AIGLX.

Though they were developed 'behind closed doors' for some time, XGL and Compiz are both now open to community scrutiny and patches, and as of mid March it seems to be all go, with new patches and features daily! There is discussion of the 'closed doors' approach, in copmarison to the scrutinisable open approach of AIGLX here

How Can I Get Them?

The way you get Compiz and Xgl will vary depending on which distribution you are using.

Please note: XGL and Compiz are unstable and such should not be run in critical situations.

If you have Nvidia hardware you are likely to have more luck than those with ATI, provided you are using propriety(I.E binary only) drivers

For Ubuntu (Dapper Drake - Unstable), check out the excellent HowTos in the forums:

Nvidia
ATI
Latest Build
This page has details for more cards/setups

For SUSE you can use the excellent OpenSuse Wiki page

Using XGL on Suse Linux

Gentoo Linux has a very good Wiki on installing the Gentoo ebuilds

Gentoo Linux Wiki

Mandriva, too has a simple way of getting XGL

Manriva Linux Forum
Also see this post about getting the latest packages

This Ubuntu based thread shows you how to build from source – so is potentially good for everyone!

Please email me with the details of how to add it to any other major distributions.

What Can it Do?

I think it is best that I let the blog speak for itself on that one! I try to have a new post for every new feature or fix.

The key thing about Copmiz is that all of the effects are provided by plugins. It is very modular and extensible, and this blog is devoted to providing the latest information about new plugins

The openSUSE wiki on Compiz has information about the standard functionality/Available plugins

Window Menu

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

DavidR patched libwnck to allow Compiz to have a proper window menu

We now have such things as ‘move to viewport’ and ‘always visible’!

Note that these patches are not to compiz, so if you need to get a special version of libwnck, Reggaemanu and Quinn can do that for you...

Quinn posted them to the forum aswell as putting them in her repo:

On DBUS

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

From http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/dbus

D-BUS is a message bus system, a simple way for applications to talk to one another.

And now, thanks to iXce, they can talk to Compiz too.

http://www.compiz.net/viewtopic.php?id=1173

Gives the details of what he has done.

There are now patches to allow calling of methods from

Cube (from iXce, original post)
Scale (PlayerX, here, and an update here)
More Cube (PlayerX) here
Water (PlayerX) here
One to activate a window: here (PlayerX again!)
And finally one for replace by iXce:

There are other patches in that thread, it is best you read it to get their context and purpose

See the wiki for a dbus howto:

AdminCompiz = CompizTools

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

What was AdminCompiz has been renamed CompizTools, and is now being developed jointly by GaRgAm and Anbreizh.

It is available in English, Spanish and French at the moment, but all translations are welcomed by the authors!

All the latet details can be found here

Window Shading

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

For anyone who is still reading this blog, I am going to try to get it back off the ground... Sorry that I've been so lax

The good news is that David R has implemented window shading, responding to requests on the mailing list.

Here is the article. It, and some recent fixes, are in QuinnCVS and QuinnDebs

For those of you confused, as I was, as to how to turn this on: in Gnome go to System-->Administration-->Windows and change the double click action to shade.

There are already new commits to fix some bugs, so this looks like it'll be polished soon

Enable KB and Mouse while zoomed

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

This "quick and dirty hack" by moppsy allows the user to interact with windows while zoomed in. I must confess I haven't tried it - so if I have misdescribed it I'd like to know :)

From Moppsy's post:

It still has all the same quirks.
You need to zoom in a little before you can zoom out, and you need to be grabbed to cancel it.
So when your zoomed, in or out, grab the cube as to rotate it and press ESC.
Initiating the switcher also adds a grab, so while it's displaying you can drag the cube around, ESC works here too.
Initiating scale is another way to drag the cube and ESC cancel.

The code and whole post can be found here. Be sure to note the instructions on configuring it

More DBus

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

PlayerX and iXce have been doing some more DBus magic

RotateUp and RotateDown cube bindings for cube plugin (iXce) can be found here

And PlayerX's bindings for the zoom plugin here

Here they are, bindings for zoom, 3 methods at the moment:
- zoomIn and zoomOut
- zoomTerminate

Calling them is similar to the previous ones,
dbus-send --dest=org.compiz.dbus --type=method_call /org/compiz/dbus/screen0 org.compiz.rotate.zoomIn dbus-send --dest=org.compiz.dbus --type=method_call /org/compiz/dbus/screen0 org.compiz.zoom.zoomOut dbus-send --dest=org.compiz.dbus --type=method_call /org/compiz/dbus/screen0 org.compiz.zoom.zoomTerminate
It should now be easier to write a bash/whatever script which rotates the cube when as a screensaver or something like that, please do so and post it

A screensaver that zooms and rotates! now would be cool :)

It was also put forward that there could be a visualisation (I.E for Totem or Xmms, etc) written that manipulates the cube. It wouldn't make working easy - but if the cube zoomed to the bass, I wouldn't mind :P

Switch and Rotate

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

Throughnothing has provided a patch that doesn't show the window behind the switcher when using Alt+Tab - it just fades/highlights the windows and rotates the cube to any window on another desktop - by all accounts it looks very cool.

What if, as an option for the switched plugin, we could disable the pop-up window in front that slides the windows around to show you a mini preview of the window. I think it would be cool to have just the windows fade in and out (highlighting the one im switching too). Sometimes i find the bar with the sliding windows gets in the way when im trying to see an app as i alt + tab. Does anyone else think this would be useful?

The patch is here

Throughnothing has released a new version here
Latest version that fixes handling of minimised windows so now you can get a preview of them! (it unminimises them while they are the 'current' window.

The Dock

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

Miniwin got split into two plugins – dock and miniwin. Still doing all the fantastical stuff as before, but now you can have one without the other:

As people have been requesting them, here is a screenshot:
You can see all my windows, plus a 'group' of Nautilus windows that is 'expanded'. You can see the Gimp as an unexpanded group

There is a thread discussing it here

there are many ideas dealing with what one can do with mindows, and the first realised was the dock/taskbar/panel thing you might know.
I've extracted the dock code and decided to make it a new plugin itself, the dock plugin.
As the latest versions of miniwin were rather stable, I recently added some animation and eye candy.
changes from miniwin-0.1.0 alpha to dock-0.1.0-rc1:
- code cleaning
- sane defaults
- animation fixes
- panel shows program name on mouse over
- panel is now colored
- panel can now have another position on the screen (bottom, top, left, right)

The most recent version, including a patch by iXce (and I think one by PlayerX too – can someone confirm?) is here

The thread is a useful resource, as always, as ddave leaves good changelogs…

Organic Scale

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

After an 'open call' for algorithms in the compiz.net forums there PlayerX has posted an 'organic' scale algorithm.

Original version here:

Ok, this is the first version, at the moment this replaces the algorithm for scaling the current screen, scaling the whole thing will also be possible, as for scaling only windows which are "like" the currently selected I think the old method should be kept, because we want those windows to be easily seen.

The latest version is here: , and a Xinerama patch is here

throughnothing has posted a patch to give us the choice of 'organic' or normal

Here is a patch that gives an option in gconf-editor to use organic or not, along with the compiz.schema file. The option is called organic

Here is a swap in lib by throughnothing:

... this one actually has something im working on where right clicking a window while scaled out will zoom in on that window...its not very refined yet but i didnt have an .so without that...

Finally, here are some screenshots to allow you to compare the old and new versions
Organic

And Normal

Scale-zoom-scale

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

Throughnothing has posted a patch that allows zooming of scaled windows when they are right clicked

From the forum post here

Here is something i made that lets you zoom in on a window during a scale out. Just right click on one of the scaled windows and it will zoom into the center for a better look. Let me know if you guys have any other suggestions/comments 126 This patch also has playerX's code for the organic window palcement in it (but it is disabled by default in case you dont want it) with the gconf option organic to turn on/off.

You will get screenshots tomorrow night when I have actually had time to apply the patch. now, because throughnothing submitted one :)

Note that this patch includes PlayerX's Organic Scale patch

More blurring

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

Another partly complete blur plugin has been posted to the forums by pixel (the orignal incomplete blur plugin can be found here)

originally I wanted to develop a blur plugin myself, but unfortunately compiz, xgl, fglrx or my xorg.conf settings are pretty unstable for me so it's not possible right now.

What I got already is a the blur fragment- and vertexshader, so maybe someone will find it useful.
They still have to be tailored and optimized. A ShaderDesigner project file is included too.

iXce has already suggested he'll look at it, so there could be great things to come.Perhaps it could be used as a model for some new cool effects?

Coupled with the information that Tommie-Lie is close to completing his themeable window borders, things could soon get even more exciting!

Themeing the widow borders (sort of)

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

In a flurry of activity on the forum Quinn has released a tool to allow us to theme the colours and the transparency of the window decorations, and managers for the themes seem to be spawning all over the place!

It started with this post by kr0n0, which was followed up by Quinn's post:

Just to bump this thread, I'm playing around with this now since theming seems so far away, and working on creating a very-customizable patch to g-w-d (with a bool to switch back to the old behaviour should you wish)

Followed by this

This is going into cvs in just a moment.

The defaults still need some tweaking and there are tons of options to play with.

Make SURE you install new schemas

Turn on /apps/compiz/plugins/decoration/allscreens/options/use_new_decor

The post was 'hidden' in the Q and A forum and I built this CVS without even knowing the option was there :P

Moppsy posted a patch to get rid of the white 'halo' on windows here (which is in the CVS now)

There are a few posts on installing the new schemas here and here for a very useful post by moppsy on how to set the colours and transparency keys from the command line.

But we don't need that anymore :)

It all (seems) to start with this mockup by SparX
More mockups, refinements and code was contributed by Melissa, Chanders and Treviño, who has added settings to gset-compiz (picture).

strash has released a python tool aswell

The picture above is Quinn's tool based on the GUI designs by the above (with her own tweaks)

Quinn's most recent post says she will keep settings in ~/.compiz/themes.

So it looks like Tommie-Lie has a while to finish his complete windec themeing before we get restless again :P

Blurring is here

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

3rd time lucky!

Quickee has posted code and a compiled lib for a new plugin to the forums to blur windows! When used with Trailfocus it allows blurring of inactive windows. According to the author, it uses pixel shaders like water and is based on neg:

I created a fragment program (pixel shaders) plugin out of neg and water, which currently supports gaussian bluring of windows. It currently misuses saturation for blur setting so saturation doesn't work. For visible effect set trailfocus plugin minimum_window_saturation_level to 1, maximum_window_saturation_level to 100 and max_trail_count to 2. To enable the plugin press s for the whole screen and w for the current window only.

Looks like it is time for me to get a card with pixel shaders!

The latest version of the lib is here

More fun with shaders - Copacity

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

...Conditional Opacity

This new plugin by Michael Callahan makes parts of the window that are similar to the background colour transparent, leaving things in the foreground as bright as they should be! At the moment it uses black as a background colour, but as the post says, that can change if people like it.

Michael's post explains all very well

Legacy applications don't support transparency. Composition managers work around this by allowing each window to have a global transparency value. However the correct behavior for most windows is to have the background color be translucent and the foreground be opaque so that text is more visible.

The conditional opacity filter works around this by using a fragment shader to only make colors that are close to the background color transparent. The rest of the colors remain opaque. The included screenshot shows a comparison of and emacs window using the copacity filter on the left and normal transparency on the right. The text fade is clearly visible between the two windows.

The plugin is hard coded to use BLACK as the background color pending a review of the usefulness of the plugin and what the user interface should look like. It also doesn't set the transparency of the window but rather preserves the existing value. The current usage is to set a window up with black background and light foreground, then use transset to set the transparency value to the desired amount, then -c to turn on the copacity effect.

And a screenshot (from the original post)

Look Ma, No Shaders!

Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:09:09 -0700

Blurry things seem to be coming thick and fast these days!

julio has released a blur plugin that doesn't use Shaders!

You should note that this is very early stages and therea re a number of limitations: read all about them here, specifically, it is still very slow...