Comky brighness and shadows

[colin_b]

I have been tinkering with Compton, and I have enabled client side shadows on windows and set a default opacity of windows to 0.75.

I have found that this darkens and gives a shadow to some of the Conkys, while others seem unaffected. The MX-geekytowerLogo is one that is unaffected (and, may I say, it's a superb addition to the desktop).

Would it be possible to prevent Comptons effects adding artifacts to Conkys?

[Jerry3904]

I have no idea whatsoever, having never used Compton in my life! I can only suggest 1) a web search, and 2) that you use Conky Manager to compare the settings, maybe especially on the Transparency tab.

[colin_b]

To be honest this problem won't bother me because I'm more than happy with the MX-geekytowerLogo Conky which is unaffected. The reason I mentioned it is anyone who uses Compton and modifies the settings could find the Conky looking wrong. If the problem were solved it could save numerous future forum posts mentioning it. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to resolve the issue.

[dolphin_oracle]

on conky files you want to try, look for the

own_window_type

and if its not present add it, with a parameter of "desktop" like this.

Code: Select all

own_window_type desktop

if the own_window_type is present but with a different value and your text is still greyed out, then change it to desktop and see what happens.

[asqwerth]

"... this problem won't bother me because I'm more than happy with the MX-geekytowerLogo Conky which is unaffected. The reason I mentioned it is anyone who uses Compton and modifies the settings could find the Conky looking wrong. If the problem were solved it could save numerous future forum posts mentioning it. Unfortunately I'm not sure how to resolve the issue."

The problem is that conky settings for transparency are not one size fits all and depends on whether you have compositing turned on or not. Some settings work nicely with compositing but without it, leave a big black window around the conky displayed on the desktop.

For the other conky scripts, the trick is to compare them with geekytowerlogo's and check out what's different, then edit them to follow geekytower's.

I don't normally adjust settings for transparency using Conky Manager (CM)'s own settings. I edit the conky script itself, which you can open from within CM by clicking the pencil icon on the toolbar.

While running geekytowerlogo , open its conky script and take note of its lines (if any) for own window (should be yes), own window transparent (should be yes), own window type (should be normal if present), and argb visual (should be yes if present). A # in front of a line means it's commented out, ie, deactivated.

Code: Select all

own_window yes
own_window_transparent yes
#own_window_type normal
#own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_hints undecorated,below,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager

geekytower doesn't have own window type normal (commented out), but that's ok because that is the default position.

It doesn't have the argb visual line but IN MANY OF THE OTHER CONKYS, THIS IS PRESENT AND SET AS NO. Either comment out the argb visual line or change the "no" in the line to "yes" in the conky you want to use, then save the edited conky text file. For desktops running with compositing, this is often the important line to check on.

Let's look at the default gotham conky, the lines are:

own_window yes
own_window_type normal
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_hints undecorated,below,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
own_window_colour 000000
own_window_argb_visual no
own_window_argb_value 0

Edit the argb visual line by commenting it out or setting it to yes, comment out the argb value line, comment out the own window colour line. Should work nicely after that.

[dolphin_oracle]

geekytower in fact sets own_window_type to "desktop". its just not in the place you would think.

excerpt

Code: Select all

# Force UTF8? note that UTF8 support required XFT
override_utf8_locale yes

# Add spaces to keep things from moving about? This only affects
#certain objects.
use_spacer none

own_window_type desktop

##############################################
#  Output
##############################################

[asqwerth]

geekytower in fact sets own_window_type to "desktop". its just not in the place you would think.

excerpt

Code: Select all

# Force UTF8? note that UTF8 support required XFT
override_utf8_locale yes

# Add spaces to keep things from moving about? This only affects
#certain objects.
use_spacer none

own_window_type desktop

##############################################
#  Output
##############################################

[edit] oops. What am I saying? brain's not working. OK, looks like desktop worked as a setting. Well, like I said,own window argb visual should be yes if present.

[colin_b]

I've just had a look through some of the Conkys via the manager and they are indeed lacking own_window_type desktop where MX-geekytowerLogo is not.

Would adding this line be added to all of the Conkys to address the problem? If so, could they be added by default?

[Jerry3904]

<Glad everybody else knew about this!>

I've just had a look through some of the Conkys via the manager and they are indeed lacking own_window_type desktop where MX-geekytowerLogo is not.

Would adding this line be added to all of the Conkys to address the problem? If so, could they be added by default?

Could be, requires a workflow something like this:

• Clone the GitHub repo
• create a new folder (say, "Test"), and paste all existing conkies into it.
• make a test conky collection by carrying out the changes listed above
• test each conky with and without Compton
• test with Xfwm and Compiz
• check against a few different displays and video drivers
• make a pull request

There is no particular hurry, and I added this info to the section "Tips and tricks" in the Wiki HELP entry now that we can use if this comes up again in the meantime.

I'm pretty m(a)xed out already with MX tasks: can you create the test set (without using GitHub, if necessary) to get the process started?

[male]

What you are proposing here is not something the developers of MX can do! Not just because they cannot predict which desktop (besides xfce) the user will use.

The problem was described by the Conky Guru @dk75 in 2012. Unfortunately, the content of this page is no longer available in the crunchbangforum.
Here is the text (hopefully correctly translated)

If you have the option "own_window no" in Conky, all other options with "own_window" at the beginning are irrelevant - will do nothing, can be deleted.

I suspect that "own_window_argb_visual yes" in most cases causes a problem with compositors and "own_window_type override" - I personally use "own_window_type normal" with COMPIZ.


"conky" - set the class name to "Conky", in this case you can use it to search for Conky windows in the Composite Manager and make some optimizations (in COMPIZ you can remove it from windows with artificial shadows or from Windows to Active / inactive)

"own_window_hints" - this option is used to set Conky window properties in its own window mode, such as decorators, widgets, stickiness on desktops, hierarchy, visibility in pager....

"own_window_argb_visual" - is used to process Conky windows with Composite Manager transparency engine - some compositors work fine, some do it wrong (COMPIZ)

"own_window_argb_value" - sets the transparency value in Compositor if own_window_argb_visual is set to "ON".

"own_window_transparent" - Conky transparency internal internal engine, only copy desktop region from below conky window, but it copy desktop background only

"Background yes" - set Conky process to "background" - break it from the shell to a separate process, regardless of shell it started

and here is the illustration of this.

Please change your subject line.