Compiz in MX 19.1

[junoluna]

only recently discovered that KDE plasma has most of those effects in their desktop effects menu

i have turned on wobbly windows and magic lamp

not a great deal of use but after using them for a while, i miss the effect when using a non wobbling environment

[asqwerth]

KDE has always been good about their desktop effects, for weaker hardware. You can turn them off and continue to use the DE. I did that on my pentium 4 machine. In fact, I was able to selectively turn on a few effects (just those that were able to work, including wobbly windows) on that machine, and leave the rest off.

In contrast, the three DEs above that I mentioned, all gnome3 based, could not work AT ALL on weaker hardware. There's no way to turn off their graphics acceleration requirements (which is weird because it's not as if gnome3 has many fancy effects ).

[richb]

This is the screenshot forum so discussions in any detail on compiz should be in another forum. I merely posted the screenshot and did not intend a thorough discussion ensue.

[asqwerth]

Sorry, richb.

Back on track then. Here's the compiz cube, with the underwater ocean scene within (Atlantis plugin). Yes, Atlantis is totally whimsical and serves no practical purpose, but it's fun!



https://imgur.com/sN5Wlrm

[woodsman]

nice. I had tried that years ago - bbut found the sttings so intense i did not have time to tweak and learn what they all did etc. maybe it had changed.

[Stevo]

Compiz works well on even older Intel graphics.

Yes, it has a zillion settings, but Debian Buster and earlier MX releases have simple-ccsm in the repos, which allows for quick and simple configuration.

Even more useless than Atlantis in the cube is the object model plugin, which allows you to put a 3D rotating object (.obj) file in the cube. For Halloween, I had a human skull spinning around in it. I believe it also supports animated .obj files, but I couldn't find a flaming skull.

[woodsman]

thank you - good to know!!!

[imschmeg]

Most of the Compiz demos I've seen are in this "impress your friends!" category. I'd love to see some in the practical get-stuff-done-better category. Especially as a drop-in replacement for Xfwm, which I wish was just a bit more tweakable. I've heard the claims that Compiz has mad get-stuff-done skilz, but haven't seen it. I suspect because the entertainment value of its other capabilities is so high.

If anyone knows of links where Compiz's talents are put to practical work instead of play, please post!

[Stevo]

Most of the Compiz demos I've seen are in this "impress your friends!" category. I'd love to see some in the practical get-stuff-done-better category. Especially as a drop-in replacement for Xfwm, which I wish was just a bit more tweakable. I've heard the claims that Compiz has mad get-stuff-done skilz, but haven't seen it. I suspect because the entertainment value of its other capabilities is so high.

If anyone knows of links where Compiz's talents are put to practical work instead of play, please post!

It's easy to make an Emerald window decoration theme's titlebar and borders bigger or smaller in the Emerald Theme Manager, something that can't be done with XFCE's "window managers".

[imschmeg]

...
It's easy to make an Emerald window decoration theme's titlebar and borders bigger or smaller in the Emerald Theme Manager, something that can't be done with XFCE's "window managers".

Thanks! I will look into that. Can it alter window decoration/titlebar/borders on a per app instance basis? For instance, I might have several browser windows open, and some are for shopping/banking while others are for surfing (each sandboxed appropriately) - I'd like to color their titlebar/borders differently. Think "Qubes for noobs". Which is interesting because the real Qubes is Xfce-based, so I imagine they have either replaced Xfwm or have their own mods that allow it to alter titlebar/border colors.

I'd also love it if I could have in Xfce the theme override capabilities that exist in Fluxbox and IceWM - so I can keep certain thematic elements constant while changing others.