Since Kwin is the window manager of kde. But it lacks some stunning effects like burn effect, active window translucency and many more form that of Compiz. How about implementing these effects and make Kde more popular and attractive. I am not comparing Kwin with Compiz but I am trying to suggest these things to the developer. So that Kde becomes more user attractive and popular. Please take a look at this suggestion and reply if wrong or not. To all developers and members

You can configure the opacity of active (and inactive) windows by a window rule, the translucency effect is orthogonal to that.
I doubt sth. like the burn effect will become a stock effect, but it's a plugin system - so you can just write and distribute such effect anytime.

KWin is doing OpenGL effects since 2008 (in development versions even earlier). Nobody considered it as a useful thing to implement something like burn over a timespan of five years. I think we can conclude from that, that it is not needed.

Especially the comparison with Compiz becomes more and more irrelevant due to Compiz being dead everywhere instead of Ubuntu and even there most effects have been kicked. That a user knows the burn effect is rather unlikely.

Also today such effects are in general not considered as attractive any more, but more as something childish from the time when it was new and nobody else could do it.

Yes, I can see what you mean I think:

Nobody implemented the burn effect, so it is not needed.
Compiz is dead, so, soon, nobody will be able to use it anyway.
Such effects are childish, so we should not encourage them.

Actually, lack of the childish burn effect is the only reason I have never used the KDE Kwin effects, preferring Compiz.

Pity

Andrew

No, he meant:
if there was really major interest in such effect, somebody would have written/"ported" it by now.

Again: it's a plugin system.
If you really like such effect, you can write (and distribute) it.
(you just need to clip away the lower part of the window and put some flame texture there)

But don't expect others to implement and maintain stuff they personally consider completely useless, eventually even embarrassing, just "because compiz had it". That's not how it works.

Searching returns 1,879,967 hits, so maybe someone likes it?

Like I said, pity


Andrew

"Searching" *what*, *where* (and including how many dupliates)?

It's not like doing magic.
If someone actually wanted it, someone would have written it. -- qed.

Love KDE, However the guys are right. Although Kwin effects are nice, they do indeed fall short in terms of (fun) effects that come with compiz. "compiz" maintained or not, you can still obtain the older effects such as "snow" , "burn", etc through the AUR in Arch Linux, (something one just cannot do through the Ubuntu repositories. You see, developers are losing sight of what (fun computing) means. Just because one community of developers feel it is not needed, washed up, out of date, etc, does not reflect that there are thousands of us so called (users) that love to have fun still and to have something that looks a cut above the others. Speaking of KDE, there is one thing I really do not like. When using the "Oxygen Theme", I noticed the theme is programmed using pre-programmed files, unlike the other themes like "Air" that can be easily modified to where Oxygen cannot. This is obvious when using Oxygen's Translucence Panel bar, but one cannot change the active button background color that is displayed in the panel when the window is open. It's just too Dark! A real pain. Also, one used to make the whole desktop translucent before, but for the life of me, I cannot find such a setting anywhere. Can't you guys make all the themes, "including Oxygen", customizable? Look under (system settings / workspace appearance / desktop theme / details for oxygen. You will see everything is set to (File). Very undesirable. When selecting the drop down menu for any one of the controls, a pop up window pops up asking for a file. Are we supposed to know where the correct file is? It could be anywhere. I have been using KDE for a few years, like I said, I do enjoy it for the most part, stable, glitch free and all, but the Oxygen theme needs to be enhanced bro. Good luck. Sincerely, (Still Distro Hopping Like Forever).

@cominatyalive, with regard to your troubles with modifying desktop themes: I would suggest you do some searching around the forums, as the topic of modifying themes has been discussed a few times over the years, and you should be able find some information which will address your problems.
If after doing such research you find that your particular situation hasn't been addressed, then I would suggest posting a new topic to discuss, as your query will likely get overlooked in a discussion about compiz effects.

@cominatyalive
You're messing up quite things here.

About KWin effects:
-----------------------------
It is absolutely possible to create such effect, if you want it - it's a plugin based system.
Just the fact that kwin maintainers refuse to maintain it in the kwin core effects, does *not* mean one could not write and distribute such effect. It does also *not* mean, kwin devs would not happily assist you on doing so.
All it needs is *one* interested person with (moderate) c++ skills.

About "The oxygen theme"
----------------------------------------
1st off, this has nothing to do w/ kwin, so you're in the wrong sub-forum.
Aside this, *no* plasma theme is somehow configurable. It's always an svg theme (containing up tp 3 different modes, dep. on whether compositing / blurring is available) which looks like the author configured it (evtl. auto-aligning to you current color scheme, *if* the design author wanted the design to follow the applications color scheme)

The "details" page in "kcmshell4 desktoptheme" allows you to brick together the desktop from various themes (eg. use kickoff from "oxygen" but "air" panels and eg. "opaquity" dialog backgrounds) - whether the result is "reasonable" is entirely up to you.
You want to adjust "Task Items" as well (or use Air in the first place?)
Also, the only reason to pick "file ..." here is to use a plasma theme that you did not install but that's eg. just in your download folder (and yes, you're supposed to know where you downloaded some theme that you didn't install - you chose the path...)

@cominatyalive, sorry, but I think you are wasting your time here. The thread is about why not to improve kwin effects, and not how to improve them. Consider:

Why do kwin effects exists? Presumably to create some of the (fun) effects in the kwin environment, however Compiz did a fine job and the kwin effects are quite unpolished in comparison.

Your more general point about why KDE and Linux distros in general seem to be moving away from allowing the user to easily create the experience that he/she wants and more towards the MS/Apple model, is taken.

The comment about if you want it, just do it yourself. You only need "(moderate) c++ skills" really says it all.

Nice try

Andrew

> The comment about if you want it, just do it yourself.
Yes - that is how open source works.
The idea "I just demand some random nonsense and someone completely uninterested in the feature will do ... for free!" is a popular misconception.
That has seriously *nothing* to do with "the MS/Apple model" - someone *always* has to write and maintain the software and that is ideally someone who cares about it. The great difference is that you can not only look up, but even re-use existing code to do what you want.

Now, convince me:
Why should I write some effect that I personally would consider infantile (nicely put)?
Or why should Martin?
Or why should anyone?
And why not someone who is actually interested in that particular feature?

> You only need "(moderate) c++ skills" really says it all.
Do you assume you could do some complex effect logics by drawing an svg in inkscape?
Seriously.

> Why do kwin effects exists?
Usability enhancment - soft transitions are better than harsh, present windows and the desktop grid get you an improved access to your windows, translucency and shadows (while latter actually a deco *plugin* feature) asssist to focus on windows or separate them from each other ...