With that in mind…what exactly are we doing? For the most part this all is nothing more than “proof of concept stuff”, all of which was brought to fruition in Compiz. But for those who do not want to use Compiz, or are using a window manager that does not work with Compiz, this little “proof of concept” is the perfect trick for getting a bit more eye candy on your desktop.

What exactly is this?

There are two tools that must be used to gain transparency in a window manager: xcompmgr and transset. Both of these will be found in your Ubuntu (or Debian) repositories. Xcompmgr was explained in the article mentioned above. Transset, however, is a small application that does one thing – sets transparency on a single window. The only draw back is that you have to manually set the transparencies of each window.When a window closes, that has a transparency applied, the next time it opens the transparency will be gone.

Of course, before we get to using transset, we have to install it first. Open up your Add/Remove Software utility. Once this is open do a search for transset. When you find the resulting entry, select it, and apply the changes.

Once transset (and xcompmgr) is installed you are ready to go.

Basic usage

Figure 1

Using transset is simple. Have open the window you want to make transparent and open up a terminal window. Issue the command:

transset

from within the terminal window and you see a crosshair (as shown in Figure 1). Move that cross hair to the window you want to make transparent and click within that window. Instantly the window you clicked in will become transparent.

If you take a look at Figure 2 you will see

Figure 2

the difference when transset is applied. You can now see the background behind the Rhythmbox window.

Now you might be thinking this is nothing more than pseudo-transparency where the window manager is just constantly redrawing the background. That is not the case. With transset you are getting true transparency. The difference is that pseduo-transparency basically redraws the root window (what is covered by the wallpaper) behind the window as it moves. If that window moves over another window the image of the secondary window (the one behind the window being moved) is not seen through the transparency.

Figure 3

As you can see, in Figure 3, the secondary window is shown above the root window. What you are seeing is Rhythmbox, above The Gimp, above the root window. Real transparency.

Make it easy

No one wants to have to open a terminal window and issue a command just to make a window transparent. What you can do, instead, is create a menu entry for this. This way, when you want to make a window transparent, all you have to do is click the menu entry and then click the target window.

Figure 4

To make this menu entry in E17 you have to go to the menu and select Settings Panel from the Settings submenu. Once that is open click on the Apps tab and then select New Application from that. Fille out the necessary information (see Figure 4) and save the entry. Here’s the trick though, a simple menu entry won’t work in E17. You actually have to add the new menu entry to the iBar in order to make this work.

Figure 5

To add this to the iBar go back tot he Settings Panel and click iBar Applications. You will see a new window with two panes (see Figure 5). Scroll down until you find your transset entry. Select your transset entry and click Add. Once you have clicked Add click OK and the new iBar button will appear in your Shelf.

Now all you have to do is click your iBar button for transset and then click the window you want to become transparent.

Final thoughts

It’s not going to make you a more efficient worker. It’s not going to resolve all of your IT issues. But it will make your desktop cooler without hogging up resources like Compiz will. And it might also help you understand, even if a tiny fraction, how the desktop is laid out.

Fortunately there are composite managers that help you bring your old school desktop into the modern ages without having to lose your mind. One of those composite managers, xcompmgr, is really quite easy to use. For most window managers it’s as simple as installing and running a command with desired arguments. Let’s take a look at how this is done.

Getting and installing

Xcompmgr will most likely be found in your distributions repositories, so you can just open up your Add/Remove Software utility, do a search for “xcompmgr”, select the results, and apply the changes. Or, if you prefer the command line, you can install xcompmgr with a command like:

sudo apt-get install xcompmgr

or

yum install xcompmgr

NOTE: The first is a Ubuntu-based command the second is a Fedora-based command. When using the Fedora command you will have to have root permissions.

Once installed, you are ready to go.

Basic usage

The syntax of the xcompmgr command is simple:

xcompmgr OPTIONS

Where OPTIONS is a single letter or group of letters representing various options.

The options

Here is a list of the more useful options used in xcompmgr:

-r Specify the blur radius for the shadows.

-o Specify the opacity for the shadows.

-l Specify left offset for shadows (default is right offset.)

-t Specify top offset for shadows (default is bottom.)

-I Specify the opacity change between steps for fading in.

-O Specify the opacity change between steps for fading out.

-c Soft shadows with translucency support.

-f Enable smooth effects for transient windows in hiding and restoring. Only used in conjunction with the “c” option.

-C Disable shadows for panels and docks. Only used in conjunction with the “c” option.

-D Specify time (in milliseconds) between steps in a fade.

Before and after

Figure 1

Let’s take a look at before and after shots of the same desktop with and without the use of xcompmgr.

Figure 1 shows the Fluxbox desktop with a few windows open (some shaded). You see no drop shadows here.

Now we’ll employ xcompmgr with the following options:

xcompmgr -c -r10 -F -f -D5 -C -o0.8 &

As you can see there are some numerical values with the options. Here’s what they mean:

r10 – Radius of 10 pixels.

D5 – 5 millisecond fade

o0.8 – Not sure what value this represents, but I know the default is .75. Play with anything between these and you’ll find a setting to your liking.

NOTE: The & is added to the end of the command so you can get your bash prompt back. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to u

Figure 2

As you can see, in Figure 2, the desktop has an added dimension it didn’t have before. It adds just enough eye candy, without taking a hit on your performance, to keep people from saying “Your desktop is old-school UNIX!”

Make it stick

The easiest way to make this stick is to make use of the .xinitrc file. This file will start your window manager exactly how you want it. If you are using Fluxbox your ~/.xinitrc file would look like this:

xcompmgr -c -r10 -F -f -D5 -C -o0.8 &


exec fluxbox

Of course, when using .xinitrc, you would have to not use your graphical log in and then use the command startx to start your window manager.

Final thoughts

No, it won’t make you a better user, programer, or win you any awards; but xcompmgr can at least make your desktop look more like it belongs in the current era.