[BASICALLY SOLVED]XGL and KDE questions

[grimz]

Hi,

I've had a quick read through small bits of the massive XGL threads, but haven't come across the issues I seem to be experiencing.
Basically I've installed XGL, and I'm getting the nice little fancy effects (woo ).

Some little things that I normally have configured with KDE have vanished, and to keep the desktop experience at the maximum (because I'm loving these XGL effects) I'm hoping to get them back!

1:
Multiple desktops. For some reason, there is only 1 desktop picture in the taskbar. Normally when I have selected 3 desktops, there will be 3 desktop icons in the taskbar, and I can simply click on each one to go there. Also, when I right click on the one desktop icon I do have, and goto Configure Desktops, for some reason it's sitting at "Number of desktops = 1", yet even if I change it to 3, and click OK, and then go back in, it goes back to 1 again.
Now, I also have it configured to switch desktops by scrolling the mouse wheel on the desktop background, this still works. This will change it between the 3 desktops I usually have configured even though the desktop configuration thinks I only have 1. I also had it bound to WindowsButton+Tab to kind of "alt tab" between desktops, but again this seems to have vanished.
The only thing that switches between the desktops is the scrollwheel on the background. Any idea's? Am I the only one experiencing this?

2:
I suppose this is related to the above, but when I use the scrollwheel to goto a new desktop, and open an application it still shows the program in the taskbar on all desktops. I have configured KDE to not show all programs in the taskbar, and only the ones on the current desktop to be displayed there.

3:
Always on top. I have setup XMMS to be "Always on Top" of all applications, and I have it minimized to the top (you may know what I'm talking about.. just double click on the playlist and it will "shrink" to the top). But for some reason with XGL it won't stay on top of everything, and it will keep shrinking to the back. Also, I have taken XMMS out of the taskbar so there is no program "icon" in the list of open applications, yet this seems to have come back with XGL. Dangnammit!

If I can get these all sorted, I will be a very happy XGL user! Fingers crossed there's a possibility.

EDIT: Sorry, I should have said that I am using KDE 3.5.3 as well and that all of these things listed above worked well without XGL. Thanks!

[Philantrop]

1: Compiz, the window manager (WM) that creates those effects simply isn't sophisticated enough yet to fully support KDE. There's currently no solution to get KDE's pager working properly AFAIK.

2: Yes, it is related. Compiz can't support that on KDE yet either. No solution I know of.

3a: You probably mean window shading. Try double-clicking the window title. Compiz can do that, too.
3b: Stay-on-top: Try right-clicking the window title. There should be an option "Always on top" (or likewise).
3c: No icon in taskbar - cf. 2. Compiz can't do that yet.
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[grimz]

Thanks for the quick reply

KDE's pager, is this the utility that shows the icons of all desktops down in the taskbar?

Stay-on-top: Yeah, I stumbled across that option since I posted this thread. But, that option seems to exist only with programs that have a "window" around it (such as firefox. You can right click on the title bar and go "On Top" and that works). But since XMMS doesn't have the normal "window" around it, it doesn't have the little title bar to right click on. Any idea's how to possibly temporarily get this window around XMMS so I can set "On Top", and then I can hopefully just remove the window and the option might stay.


Also, do you know if any of this stuff works fine with GNOME? If Compiz has better compatability with GNOME, I might as well give it a whirl instead of KDE. Or would it be that if it doesn't work with KDE, it still won't work with GNOME?

Thanks!

[brazzmonkey]

yeah, pager is what shows desktop miniatures with windows and icons if it is configured this way. it allows you switching desktops.
xgl/compiz is nice but many things do not fully work, and in many ways kwin (kde window manager) is more practictal because of its kde integration. i had a good time trying xgl, but imho useability comes before eye-candy so there's no point in using compiz with kde atm.
i suppose it is better integrated in gnome, but i haven't extensively tried yet.

[Philantrop]

I agree with brazzmonkey. Usability currently suffers when using Xgl/compiz. This the case for both KDE and Gnome, IMHO, even though I've mainly tested on KDE.

Gnome integration, IMHO, is not really better than on KDE. But then, I can't stand Gnome anyway. It sucks.

I can't answer your XMMS question, I'm afraid, because I hardly know it (I don't listen to music. :-) ). I'm sure there must be an option to get a window frame, though.
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If you feel the issues discussed in this thread have been resolved, please add a "[Solved]" to the subject of your original posting.

[grimz]

Thanks for the replies guys

I've given Gnome-light a test (I didn't want all that bloat crap ) as I haven't used Gnome for a fair while now, and figured I'd also see where its development was up to.

Well, the differences with compiz on Gnome is:
- The multiple desktops panel is visible, and it shows all of the desktops available.
- The icons in the task bar are confined to each desktop that it is actually open on.
- I found a nice little "solution" to my XMMS problem. I've installed a tray icon plugin, and it will minimize to tray. If I need it again, I can simply click on it, up pops XMMS, and I can do things as normal. Or I can right click on the icon and change track/pause/stop, etc. But while it's minimized to the tray, it plays the music and is out of the way

Other then the multiple desktops stuff, compiz on Gnome is pretty much identicle to KDE.
I'm still a KDE fan, but at the moment it seems XGL has these little quirks with multiple desktops that will keep me with Gnome. Looks like I've almost finished balancing out the eye candy with useability

The only thing I would love to have is the WindowsKey(Super_L) + Tab to scroll through the multiple desktops. I've been playing around with gconf-editor, but without success. Oh well for now!

Hope this information is of help for any other people in the same boat!

[bedahr]

You may want to take a look at the section apps > compiz > plugins > rotate > screen0 > options.

The default keybind to rotate the cube is Ctrl+Alt+Right/Left, but you can change it in the section i mentioned above.

The stay-on-top feature works quite well in KDE, but you need a taskbar entrie though... Just right click->Stay above others. Works here.

You might also want to take a look at Ctrl+Alt+Down which should unfold the desktops in some kind of "film", which is like a huge pager .

--bedahr