Hi everyone!
Every time a new Fedora comes out, when I install it I try to spend some time evaluating the progress of kwin desktop effects, in the hope that they will eventually become feature-full enough to replace compiz (for my particular usecase, that is).
So now I have tried them in F13 (clean install from KDE LiveCD and fully updated), and I have several questions:
* Is there a way to put a background behind the cube in the desktop cube effect (in compiz this is called "skydome")?
* Is there a way to configure the amount of elevation of windows when they are configured to hover outside the cube? Currently they are way to far away from the cube surface, and it doesn't look nice.
* Is there a way to include mouse buttons as a keyboard-shortcut action? For example, I would like to have the desktop cube effect activated not with the usual ctrl+f11 combination, but with ctrl+alt+left-mouse-button (as I did in compiz). Mouse buttons do not seem to be accepted in the shortcut dialogs.
* I typically use 8 desktops, which kwin has arranged into a 2x4 grid. How can I rearrange this into a 1x8 grid? I don't want to switch desktops up and down, only left and right.
* I want to switch desktops when hitting the left/right screen edge, but not when hitting top/bottom screen edge. How can this be configured? Also, is there a way to customize the size of "screen corner" versus "screen edge"? I have a "present windows" effect active in upper-left corner, which works perfectly when edge desktop switching is disabled. But if I enable it and put the mouse into a corner, the desktop switching kicks in rather then the present windows effect, and I cannot seem to hit the very corner with the mouse that easily. So it would be a good idea to customize how "big" is the corner supposed to be.
* Is there any equivalent of the "ring switcher" from compiz? That is, window thumbnails displayed in a ring (circle or ellipse), and rotate when alt-tab is being pressed...
* Is there a possibility to draw window borders which one can grab with the mouse and have the window fold like a sheet of paper (this makes sense only when window is maximized)? This is a feature of Emerald window decorator in compiz, haven't seen it anywhere else. Kwin doesn't seem to have an option of drawing window borders at all, for maximized windows.
* Is there a possibility to download/install extra effects, which are not included in the default install with F13 (do any extra effects exist)?
Overall, I've seen a lot of improvement in desktop effects compared to F11 and F12, but it is still not as configurable as compiz. If anyone can answer any of the above questions, I'll try to stick with kwin some more and explore it, otherwise I'll just fall back to compiz/emerald again and wait for F14.
Any suggestions welcome! ;-)
:-) Marko
On Thursday, July 22, 2010 17:16:42 Marko Vojinovic wrote:
Every time a new Fedora comes out, when I install it I try to spend some time evaluating the progress of kwin desktop effects, in the hope that they will eventually become feature-full enough to replace compiz (for my particular usecase, that is).
[snip]
Anyone?
Best, :-) Marko
Yes compiz is more feature rich than kde's desktop effect. That being said. I have to shrug my shoulders a bit. While I've impressed people with wobbly windows and the extra effects do add some amusement to my computing sessions. Really.... If its there or not doesn't really make much differenct to me.
Eli
On Thursday 22 July 2010 19:16:42 Marko Vojinovic wrote:
Hi everyone!
Every time a new Fedora comes out, when I install it I try to spend some time evaluating the progress of kwin desktop effects, in the hope that they will eventually become feature-full enough to replace compiz (for my particular usecase, that is).
So now I have tried them in F13 (clean install from KDE LiveCD and fully updated), and I have several questions:
- Is there a way to put a background behind the cube in the desktop
cube effect (in compiz this is called "skydome")?
- Is there a way to configure the amount of elevation of windows when
they are configured to hover outside the cube? Currently they are way to far away from the cube surface, and it doesn't look nice.
- Is there a way to include mouse buttons as a keyboard-shortcut
action? For example, I would like to have the desktop cube effect activated not with the usual ctrl+f11 combination, but with ctrl+alt+left-mouse-button (as I did in compiz). Mouse buttons do not seem to be accepted in the shortcut dialogs.
- I typically use 8 desktops, which kwin has arranged into a 2x4 grid.
How can I rearrange this into a 1x8 grid? I don't want to switch desktops up and down, only left and right.
- I want to switch desktops when hitting the left/right screen edge,
but not when hitting top/bottom screen edge. How can this be configured? Also, is there a way to customize the size of "screen corner" versus "screen edge"? I have a "present windows" effect active in upper-left corner, which works perfectly when edge desktop switching is disabled. But if I enable it and put the mouse into a corner, the desktop switching kicks in rather then the present windows effect, and I cannot seem to hit the very corner with the mouse that easily. So it would be a good idea to customize how "big" is the corner supposed to be.
- Is there any equivalent of the "ring switcher" from compiz? That is,
window thumbnails displayed in a ring (circle or ellipse), and rotate when alt-tab is being pressed...
- Is there a possibility to draw window borders which one can grab
with the mouse and have the window fold like a sheet of paper (this makes sense only when window is maximized)? This is a feature of Emerald window decorator in compiz, haven't seen it anywhere else. Kwin doesn't seem to have an option of drawing window borders at all, for maximized windows.
- Is there a possibility to download/install extra effects, which are
not included in the default install with F13 (do any extra effects exist)?
Overall, I've seen a lot of improvement in desktop effects compared to F11 and F12, but it is still not as configurable as compiz. If anyone can answer any of the above questions, I'll try to stick with kwin some more and explore it, otherwise I'll just fall back to compiz/emerald again and wait for F14.
Any suggestions welcome! ;-)
:-)
Marko _______________________________________________ kde mailing list kde@lists.fedoraproject.org https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/kde New to KDE4? - get help from http://userbase.kde.org
Marko Vojinovic wrote:
- Is there a possibility to draw window borders which one can grab
with the mouse and have the window fold like a sheet of paper (this makes sense only when window is maximized)? This is a feature of Emerald window decorator in compiz, haven't seen it anywhere else. Kwin doesn't seem to have an option of drawing window borders at all, for maximized windows.
I think you're confusing the concepts of "maximized" and "fullscreen": KWin always draws window borders for maximized windows, but fullscreen ones have the very purpose of not having window borders. You maximize a window through the window decoration, the "fullscreen" option (often activated by the F11 keyboard shortcut) provided by some applications is different.
Kevin Kofler
On Friday, July 30, 2010 19:41:11 Kevin Kofler wrote:
Marko Vojinovic wrote:
- Is there a possibility to draw window borders which one can grab
with the mouse and have the window fold like a sheet of paper (this makes sense only when window is maximized)? This is a feature of Emerald window decorator in compiz, haven't seen it anywhere else. Kwin doesn't seem to have an option of drawing window borders at all, for maximized windows.
I think you're confusing the concepts of "maximized" and "fullscreen": KWin always draws window borders for maximized windows, but fullscreen ones have the very purpose of not having window borders. You maximize a window through the window decoration, the "fullscreen" option (often activated by the F11 keyboard shortcut) provided by some applications is different.
No, I don't think I'm confusing those two. By "maximized" I mean the thing that gets triggered when one clicks the appropriate button in the top right corner of the window titlebar, between minimize and close buttons. The window gets spread across the screen, but does not go into fullscreen. It's just the common usual "maximize" feature that exists basically on all window managers (and on all OSes :-) ).
Now, when the window is in this state, I don't seem to see window borders, except the window titlebar on top. Maybe the borders are too thin for me to notice, or maybe they are not there at all (can one configure their thickness anywhere?). Either way, I cannot seem to navigate the mouse to "grab&drag" a window border. Or even if I could, that would probably resize the window rather than fold it like paper (the F13 machine is not here for me to check right now). In emerald, if the window is *not* maximized, dragging the border also resizes it by default, but if it *is* maximized, dragging the window border does this paper-folding effect instead of resizing.
The effect is quite nice and comes handy when you have two maximized windows on top of each other. You work in one, but can easily fold it to "take a peek" at the other one behind. The front window behaves like a paper in a book, or like a curtain over a real window --- move it slightly to see what is behind, than let it unfold back. The catch is that during this time the front window never loses focus.
Btw, emerald doesn't do this by default, one needs to deactivate the "use decoration cropping" option in emerald-theme-manager. I guess because of this very few people even know about this effect.
But anyway, despite that I'd like to see all those features in KWin, maybe I'm asking for too much atm. Guess KDE developers have more important things to do than to copy features of compiz&friends. :-)
Best, :-) Marko
No, I don't think I'm confusing those two. By "maximized" I mean the
thing
that gets triggered when one clicks the appropriate button in the
top right
corner of the window titlebar, between minimize and close
buttons. The
window gets spread across the screen, but does not go into
fullscreen.
It's just the common usual "maximize" feature that exists
basically on all
window managers (and on all OSes :-) ).
Now, when
the window is in this state, I don't seem to see window borders,
except
the window titlebar on top. Maybe the borders are too thin for me to
notice, or maybe they are not there at all (can one configure their
thickness anywhere?). Either way, I cannot seem to navigate the mouse to
"grab&drag" a window border. Or even if I could, that would probably
resize the window rather than fold it like paper (the F13 machine is not
here for me to check right now). In emerald, if the window is *not*
maximized, dragging the border also resizes it by default, but if it *is*
maximized, dragging the window border does this paper-folding effect
instead of resizing.
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010 at 8:40 AM, Christian Jann christian_jann@yahoo.de wrote:
Now, when the window is in this state, I don't seem to see window borders, except the window titlebar on top. Maybe the borders are too thin for me to notice, or maybe they are not there at all (can one configure their thickness anywhere?). Either way, I cannot seem to navigate the mouse to "grab&drag" a window border. Or even if I could, that would probably resize the window rather than fold it like paper (the F13 machine is not here for me to check right now). In emerald, if the window is *not* maximized, dragging the border also resizes it by default, but if it *is* maximized, dragging the window border does this paper-folding effect instead of resizing.
Sorry, but I don't see that. What I see is this:
http://imagebin.ca/view/XcbS9F3p.html
There is no option to display borders on maximized windows. I use up to date F13/KDE 4.4.5. Do you have some other version maybe?
Best, :-) Marko
On Tue August 3 2010 16:36:51 Marko Vojinovic wrote:
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010
at 8:40 AM, Christian Jann christian_jann@yahoo.de wrote:
Now, when
the window is in this state, I don't seem to see window
borders, except
the window titlebar on top. Maybe the borders are too
thin for me to
notice, or maybe they are not there at all (can one
configure their
thickness anywhere?). Either way, I cannot seem to
navigate the mouse
to "grab&drag" a window border. Or even if I could,
that would probably
resize the window rather than fold it like paper
(the F13 machine is
not here for me to check right now). In emerald, if
the window is *not*
maximized, dragging the border also resizes it by
default, but if it
*is* maximized, dragging the window border does this
paper-folding
effect instead of resizing.
Sorry, but I don't see that. What I see is this:
http://imagebin.ca/view/XcbS9F3p.html
There is no option to display
borders on maximized windows. I use up
to date F13/KDE 4.4.5. Do you have
some other version maybe?
Best, :-) Marko
OK, I'm using F12/KDE 4.5 you only have to wait some days (August 4th: Release KDE SC 4.5).
On 08/03/2010 12:54 PM, Christian Jann wrote:
On Tue August 3 2010 16:36:51 Marko Vojinovic wrote:
On Sat, Jul 31, 2010
at 8:40 AM, Christian Jannchristian_jann@yahoo.de wrote:
Now, when
the window is in this state, I don't seem to see window
borders, except
the window titlebar on top. Maybe the borders are too
thin for me to
notice, or maybe they are not there at all (can one
configure their
thickness anywhere?). Either way, I cannot seem to
navigate the mouse
to "grab&drag" a window border. Or even if I could,
that would probably
resize the window rather than fold it like paper
(the F13 machine is
not here for me to check right now). In emerald, if
the window is *not*
maximized, dragging the border also resizes it by
default, but if it
*is* maximized, dragging the window border does this
paper-folding
effect instead of resizing.
Sorry, but I don't see that. What I see is this:
http://imagebin.ca/view/XcbS9F3p.html
There is no option to display
borders on maximized windows. I use up
to date F13/KDE 4.4.5. Do you have
some other version maybe?
Best, :-) Marko
OK, I'm using F12/KDE 4.5 you only have to wait some days (August 4th: Release KDE SC 4.5).
I wonder if that is the same option, just worded differently?
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