Hey everyone, I'm new to the forum. I updated my Linux distro last night (OpenSuse) and love the changes I'm seeing with each release. I have a feature request however, that I really wish to ask the developers to consider.

Being a Windows 7 user, I'm used to having the aero desktop effect, which I could no longer live without (borders / backgrounds of windows being transparent and blurring content behind them). Although compiz has a blur post-process, the window manager does not support transparency by default, making this effect impossible to achieve. I discovered that someone managed to implement the feature in KDE still, using some hacks and scripts. It's called Oxygen-transparent, which is an edit of the Oxygen theme that also supports transparency. Here are some screenshots:

Image 1, Image 2, Image 3.

As far as I'm concerned, that looks gorgeous, and I'd love to use it permanently! The problem however is that it requires compiling and installing a special script, which goes beyond my abilities in Linux, while I also don't like such hacks in general. It's also not a default theme, so I'd have to find it and hack it in place. For me at least, those aren't good conditions of installing something important you plan to use.

My request is: Can you please support transparency on windows by default (without requiring a script)? As well as including the Oxygen-transparent theme in KDE releases, if not even defaulting it? This would be very awesome, and would make me feel that KDE advanced a great deal. I would highly appreciate the feature

I can think of two ways to implement this. One is having themes support it, and defining transparency in the skin properties. Another way is allowing transparency to be set in the color editor instead. This would make the feature work with all themes, and on any component chosen by the user (eg: You could blur the close / minimize / maximize buttons). So instead of just defining just colors in the color scheme, you would define color + alpha in one go, which is a common method. Transparency however could be enabled at any time, even if desktop effects or blur are disabled. You would still get transparent windows, and blur would only come in place if the effect can happen. What do you think?

Just googled more about this. It seems Oxygen-transparent was already considered for inclusion, but skipped due to some problems with video players. That is sad, and I hope those issues will be fixed soon Are there perhaps any updates on the matter, and an estimation as to when those problems will be solved and the style included? Also, can't it be included and disabled by default at worst? I imagine that when setting transparency to 0, the effect is disabled and no longer rendered, which should fix those issues. I really wanna try it, but the whole procedure to install it seems way too complex (if it could at least install through Yast -> Software Management).

Hi and welcome to the forums!

As far as I know, one of the problems with Oxygen-transparent was the performance of the Blur effect - blurring such a large is expensive in terms of computer power. I've heard that 4.8 (which is due in January) improves this.

As for Oxygen-transparent, I think you should be a be able to find a package for openSUSE and simply install it, it's like any other widget style. If it doesn't work well it's just a matter of selecting another style and (optionally) unistall it.
I found a package in the openSUSE Build Service, but since I use another distro I can't give any specific instructions. Better wait for an openSUSE user to tell you how to install.

if you want a transparent theme try systemsettings -> workspace appearance -> desktop theme -> get new themes -> search -> transpar (use "transpar" as it will return both transparent and transparency results). no idea if all transparent themes have issues with video players

if you want Oxygen-transparent and are willing to deal with the video player issue you can download it at http://kde-look.org/content/show.php/ox ... ent=127752

oxygen-transparent is in the kde:unstable:playground repository for openSUSE. There are also QtCurve and Bespin that also offer transparency. Unforunately my understanding is that the video issue is not fixable under X11, but I think all three themes let you blacklist problematic video players.

Hans wrote:As far as I know, one of the problems with Oxygen-transparent was the performance of the Blur effect - blurring such a large is expensive in terms of computer power. I've heard that 4.8 (which is due in January) improves this.

Hi

I have other opinion about blur effect performance. I'm using this effect (oxygen-transparent + blur) on KDE 4.6 on two desktops with nVidia 8600 and nVidia 9600. On both computers it works only a little slower than without this effect so I'm happy using this. This effect looks beautiful! Transparent windows (not only window title bars) add remarkable value to the Plasma Desktop.
I only had visible performance issues when there was a problem with incompatibility between nVidia driver v275 and Xorg 1.11. Version 290 of nVidia driver solved this problem.
In my opinion this oxygen-trasparent transparent should be available by default in KDE. User should have possibility to choice whether he want to use it or not.