Kommentare zu: Some not so wobbly news from wobblyland

Von: Links 07/04/2009: Nokia May Enter GNU/Linux Sub-notebooks | Boycott Novell

Links 07/04/2009: Nokia May Enter GNU/Linux Sub-notebooks | Boycott Novell — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 19:25:23 +0000

[...] Some not so wobbly news from wobblyland There has been some work going on to improve the tabbox (alt+tab) when no effect is used. Andreas Pakulat added an outline for the currently selected window like it was in KDE 3 time. Very nice and usefuel – thanks a lot. The tabbox has received some face lifting and uses the Plasma style. On that part I want to thank Nuno for his great help on making the whole thing nice. Adding some pixels here and there – I could not have done it. [...]

Von: blueget

blueget — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:30:39 +0000

IMO, the notification should also show possible reasons why activating the effects failed, to give the users a hint what they could do in order to make enabling the effects possible, or at least give them some information.

Von: Luis

Luis — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:43:42 +0000

You can change the KRunner theme using “Desktop Theme Details” on the advance tab. I guess it should be possible for Kwin too.

Von: Martin

Martin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:24:16 +0000

@Luis: no that is not possible as well as it’s not possible to select another theme for KRunner.

Von: Luis

Luis — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:21:04 +0000

Is it possible to add an option to select the “plasma theme” for Kwin individually (I like a lot more Air, but those new pop-ups/OSD look better with Oxygen, and give more variety to the appearance, while still looking integrated),

Von: Martin

Martin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:33:03 +0000

@Psychotron: there are more cases. Example: you use XRender (many effects disabled), select OpenGL, now all effects should be selectable, you click apply and OpenGL fails returning to XRender, so you have effects that do not work any more.

There are just too many possible ways. That’s why I decided on going for a passive notification.

@Hans: could be possible, but I have not seen the code yet and I won’t have the time for it till hard freeze

Von: Hans

Hans — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:59:06 +0000

Wooh, this is great! Do you think the alt-tab popup (with no effect) could get the same animation as krunner when you switch items? Not sure, but I think it would look pretty good.

Von: Psychotron

Psychotron — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:43:29 +0000

Concerning telling the user which plugins don’t work … can’t you still deactivate them in the list when compositing is active? I think it’s nicer to know before hand that something is not available, instead of letting the user try and fail. I’m might completely missing something, but I can identify these cases:

1. You have compositing disabled in Xorg or no compositing at all: you can’t modify effects anyway, thus no problem.
2. Compositing is possible, and it’s enabled in Xorg, but disabled for Kwin (“Enable desktop effects” switch): same, can’t modify, no problem.
3. Compositing in Kwin is enabled on startup, but temporarily disabled (Ctrl+F12): Here you can test what’s available on startup, and keep the information when it gets temporarily disabled. No problem here.

This leaves two cases with problems:
4. First, when you change the compositing type. Shouldn’t it be possible to tell beforehand whether a plugin supports a certain type i.e. whether it requirers OpenGL? The plugin description file could contain a list of supported types.

5. The other: Compositing is possible, but in Kwin is disabled on startup, so you can’t test for shaders or the like before the user activates it. Still you could deactivate effects depending on the selected compositing type (see 4.). Just not on special GL features. Once activated you can do that as well. And solely on first activation of compositing show a dialog of failed effects. And only for effects which have actually been selected. So with a good default i.e. effects which require no special GL features, most users won’t ever see this dialog.

This would give a smooth user experience in most cases IMHO.

Von: Martin

Martin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:29:39 +0000

@Rasi: it’s in Systemsettings -> Window Behaviour -> Window Behaviour -> first tab -> last checkbox

Von: maninalift

maninalift — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:27:17 +0000

I keep meaning to hunt down the reason why kwin thinks my card doesn’t support the necessary shaders for some effects. Its a decent enough card so I’m not sure whether it really doesn’t support the shaders or whether it’s a communication problem. thanks for reminding me.