Thanks to Rodrigo’s work, simple-ccsm now has a switch to easily enable/disable Compiz.

On openSUSE 11.0 users will not have to fiddle with any commandline, hack scripts or xorg.conf to enable Compiz. AIGLX is enabled by default on all the supported hardwares, and as soon as ATI/NVIDIA drivers are installed via 1-click, so all that is required is launch simple-ccsm (Desktop Effects) application and enable compiz.

In case you are wondering what theme I am using, it is just the default openSUSE gilouch theme, greened just the way I like it. Download and drag and drop the tarball on “Appearence” caplet if you want it too.

I’ve merged cubecaps into cubeaddon, to be able to transform the cube caps. With this functionality I was able to create a full sphere deformation of the cube. I’ve also fixed the rotate plugin to report proper progress for the inside cube mode to allow deformation in “inside cube”.

As response to the feedback you gave me in the comments, I updated the table. I also added some short descriptions to each profile.

Here is one more of “cube” mode to make users of other OS jealous

openSUSE users grab compiz-fusion-git packages from home:cyberorg (experimental/unstable) repository. Wait till all the packages (except emerald*) are synced out to the mirrors and have the same version (080502).

Is it just me or did the last few weeks just pass like *that*? Strange how fast time can flow… Anyway.

Today I took some time to think about better values / names for the profiles provided in Simple-CCSM.  And that is what I could come up with: Five profiles, one using default setting, two using Wall and two using Cube.

Here is a table which shows the exact settings in each profile:

Any suggestions on these?

BTW. I’m on vacation next week, so I won’t be available.

I have just released a new version of Compiz-Switch

The latest version is pretty much a rewrite of version 0.2
(I didn't release v0.3 publicly because the changes I made weren't implemented properly).

Features

Apart from switching Compiz on and off on a single click, Compiz-Switch has now additional features.

In addition to that, version 0.4 has now proper argument support – this way you can run

compiz-switch --help

to get a list of all options available.

Then you can use those arguments when running Compiz-Switch in the terminal or add them to your panel starter.

Kill and restore Screenlets along with Compiz

You can now quit all running Screenlets when switching off Compiz.

There are two options available how to restore them, when running Compiz again (use only one of them at a time, of course):

• Restore exactly the Screenlets you were running before
  Add the -s argument when using Comiz-Switch to use this:
  

  compiz-switch -s

• Restore only the Screenlets you added to you autostart programs
  (using screenlets-manager) – the argument for that is -sa:
  

  compiz-switch -sa

I have only tested this for the Screenlets version included in Haryd and the repository for Gutsy, so I can't guarantee it works for the very latest version maintained by Whise.

Use the icon as a status icon (experimental)

When adding the -c argument, the icon for Compiz-Switch will change according to the status of Compiz

compiz-switch -c

This seems to work only in the GNOME panel, if you stored a starter for Compiz-Switch there.

The whole thing was a PITA to implement and it seems to fail even for GNOME sometimes.
Honestly, I don't know if it's possible to implement any better. I guess to function properly it would have to be an applet – but then it won't be independent of the desktop environment in use anymore.

So I'll just leave it this way. After all, it's just a gimmick.

Get Compiz-Switch at http://forlong.blogage.de/article/pages/Compiz-Switch
There is an Ubuntu deb package available that should be suitable for any architecture now.

In The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment a man runs his girlfriend through a series of seemingly common tasks and sees how she does with Ubuntu. The bit about downloading an album online seems a bit sketchy (use amazon, not bittorrent) but the main one I want to talk about concerns, of course, Compiz.

In the ninth task he asks his girlfriend to change her screen resolution and she of course picks the first one in the list, which is far too small and the Screen Resolution tool no longer fits on the screen. He then complains about the fact that he cannot make the window smaller (application problem) and cannot move the window past the top of the screen (Compiz problem). A ‘fix’ in either one would solve this problem but a fix in the application would fix it the best.

However, it is interesting to think about how to fix this problem in Compiz. First of all, you could just turn off the option that prevents you from moving windows past the top of the screen but then you’ll have problems losing windows off the top of the screen and having to use Alt-Button1 to move them back down. So clearly this option has a reason for existing and being turned on by default, but it isn’t always what you want.

My solution to this problem is to make it possible to move a window past the top of the screen if and only if the window is larger than the screen height. In this situation you’re screwed either way so stopping you from doing this gains nothing. However, you still need to be somewhat of a power user to know you can use Alt-Button1 to move a window in such a way as you cannot grab the titlebar to move it that far up. I can’t think of how to make this easier to figure out though and it is better than nothing.

Can anyone think of a better way to solve this problem in Compiz? Like I said, obviously the correct answer is to solve it in the application and leave Compiz alone but it is not realistic to expect every application to work in 640×480 or 720×400.

It’s that time again. Time to plan for a new release of Ubuntu, I mean. There are some rather large things in this list and so I doubt all of them will be implemented in time but it is always better to dream big and get as much done as possible. Otherwise we’ll have everything done in a month and be left with nothing else to do (except fix bugs, of course). Before I start, let me remind you that none of this is official, I am not getting paid to do any of this, and this relies on other people getting things done too. If none of this happens, don’t be surprised.

Move as many Ubuntu patches upstream as possible

This is a basic package maintenance chore and shouldn’t really need to be on this list. However, we have not really done this since Ubuntu 7.04 and we have quite a few patches that have built up. Many of them are rather hacky and will not be accepted upstream so I’ll have to figure out a proper way to do them or keep them in our packages. This is the main priority and the one that has the best chance of being completed.

Fix major usability ‘regressions’ from Metacity

There are still some big things that work differently when you use Compiz versus using Metacity. In Compiz itself we have the Show Desktop and Application Switcher features. These are when you click the button in the bottom left corner of your screen and press Alt-Tab, respectively. I don’t think there is anything wrong with how these work but they don’t work like many people expect so it violates the Don’t Make Me Think rule of usability as you have to consider what mode you’re using (Compiz on or off) when you use these tools.

The other main problem in this area is libwnck and gnome-panel. Specifically, the Workspace Switcher applet on your panel does not work the same way when Compiz is enabled. These problems range from cosmetic issues to missing features. I have submitted patches to GNOME for some of the missing features so the only big one missing is a lack of drag-and-drop support. After that were are some issues with how windows are colored on non-active viewports in the switcher. I’m sure I’m missing some things here but I’m also sure someone will file a bug about them if they haven’t already.

This is the most important item on the list as far as users are concerned and I hope to get at least the Workspace Switcher and Show Desktop problems fixed but the Application Switcher changes will depend on the next item on this list so is much less likely.

New decorator using GTK+ and SVG themes

Here we go, the big one. For some time now we’ve wanted to break away from using plain Metacity themes and come up with our own system. This is what Emerald was supposed to be but it was way over-the-top, slow, and hard to work on. I hope to avoid these problems by starting from scratch with a clean design using GTK+ and librsvg. And, because the decorator is actually responsible for drawing the Application Switcher, with this I can also fix the problems people have with that at the same time. This is all in the planning stages right now and is not likely to be considered ready (or done at all) by the Ubuntu 8.10 release unless I get help or get paid to do it so I don’t have to worry about a regular job.

Another goal with this decorator is to have two modes: reparenting and non-reparenting. The non-reparenting mode is how decorators in Compiz work now, the decoration is not actually a part of the window but just floats around it and relies on compositing to keep the two in sync. The reparenting mode is how other windows managers work, the decoration makes the window a child and the two stick together no matter what. This will be important when we eventually (hopefully) make Compiz work as a regular window manager without compositing for computers that cannot run all the fancy effects. This is also the reason we can stop worrying about Metacity theme compatibility; in this scenario Compiz is always running, even if you set Visual Effects to None.

Forward all relevant bugs upstream

Since I’ve been ordering these items by priority it might seem odd to have this one at the bottom. After all, the more bugs upstream knows about the more they can fix which makes Compiz better for everyone. However, this work can be done by many people and it is not a huge loss if this doesn’t get completely done by the Ubuntu 8.10 release. Also, this work can be done easily alongside the other items in this list. The only big work here will be when I go through every currently reported bug at the beginning of the development cycle (I’ll probably do this next week) and then go through them again sometime around the Beta release. Putting that all together we have a task which is more like icing on the cake instead of a major thing to focus on.

Putting this all together if I can even get the first two items completed this will be a very nice release that makes our packages easier to maintain and solves several real issues every user deals with. We should also have DRI2 support for at least the Intel driver (and hopefully the ATI one as well) which fixes our problems with using OpenGL applications with Compiz. This all makes me feel somewhat sorry for people who will choose to stick with the Ubuntu 8.04 release due to its LTS status as they will have a vastly inferior Compiz experience and none of this is small enough to backport for them. Oh well, they’ll get to see it all in Ubuntu 10.04 or whenever the next LTS release is.

I wrote a script called Compiz-Check over the past weeks that will test if Compiz is able to run on your system/setup.
If not, it will (hopefully) tell you the reason why.

Additionally you can use the output of the script to look for support in the Compiz Fusion forums or the mailing list / forum of your distribution, which will make it much easier to locate your problem.

Here's how it looks like:

Gathering information about your system...

 Distribution:          Ubuntu 8.04
 Desktop environment:   GNOME
 Graphics chip:         ATI Technologies Inc RV350 AR [Radeon 9600]
 Driver in use:         radeon
 Rendering method:      AIGLX

Checking if it's possible to run Compiz on your system...

 Checking for texture_from_pixmap...               [ OK ]
 Checking for non power of two support...          [ OK ]
 Checking for composite extension...               [ OK ]
 Checking for FBConfig...                          [ OK ]
 Checking for hardware/setup problems...           [ OK ]

The last check is probably the most interesting one.
The script checks there if

• there's a driver in use, that is known to work with Compiz
• an older version of the fglrx driver is in use that needs Xgl
  (and checks for that as well)
• the resolution in use is not too large
• Metacity's compositing manager is disabled
• a possibly blacklisted PCI ID is in use
• a laptop with the ati/radeon driver is in use (Hardy only)
• the path to the compiz binary could be detected (Ubuntu only)
• a Nvidia card is in use and if it has enough memory

To each of those (possible) fails is an error message available that describes the problem as clear and short as possible.

Some setup related problems (like the one with Metacity) will be even offered to fix by the script.

A brief history of Compiz-Check

There were many reasons why I started this project, those are the three main ones:

First of all, there's the constant lack of info given by the people that are looking for support in forums like forum.compiz-fusion.org or ubuntuforums.org

Then there's the output Compiz (or rather compiz-manager) produces when running in the terminal, which tends to confuse people more than it clears things up.
Particularly the recurring confusion whether Xgl is something fundamental important or not – because Compiz seems to "need" it (it looks for it twice, so it has to be important!).

Last but not least, there was the realization Ubuntu won't be doing something about Bug #152271 for Hardy:

"Desktop effects could not be enabled" – that is all you ever get to know, when Compiz fails to run.
No info what went wrong and if there's something you can do about it.
Not even a hint to run Compiz in a terminal.

Anyway... I decided I'm done with complaining and put my money where my mouth is.
So I wrote this script in order to kill two birds with one stone.

Please let me know if you encounter any problems.
The script has been tested to work by myself on Ubuntu Hardy, Gutsy and Feisty (all GNOME) and Arch Linux (GNOME and KDE) so far.

Many people requested an update of my set up guide to the version of Compiz Fusion found in Ubuntu's latest release "Hardy Heron".

From the beginning I was reluctant to do that, because the official current stable release is still Compiz 0.6.2 / Compiz Fusion 0.6.0.

How to set up Compiz Fusion 0.7.4

P.S. The reason for this separate blog entry here is I didn't want to expose the whole guide to the planets my blog is aggregated on, because it's way too long. I hope you will enjoy it anyway

Update: sorry, I noticed the guide got forwarded to ubuntuweblogs.org nonetheless. Fixed it.

A lot of people asked for a sphere deformation of the cube. I can’t realize a full sphere, due to limitations how the cube caps are painted, but maybe I will find a solution for this in a FAR future. I’ve also haven’t found a better name, so that the new deformation is called “Sphere like”.

As we have to do most of the transformation on the CPU, it should be clear that these effects have a heavy impact on the FPS and CPU load.

It seems AMD’s scripts to build an Ubuntu package for 7.10 include a diversion for /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager so they can add fglrx to the list of supported drivers. The problem is that they don’t remove this diversion on upgrade/uninstall so when you upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04 the /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager file will no longer exist and compiz will not start.

The fix is pretty simple, just run this:
sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /etc/xdg/compiz/compiz-manager

Yay, compiz works again. Remember, this is why you should only install such drivers from Ubuntu. The latest version is not worth a broken upgrade.

Compiz Fusion Git packages got updated in home:cyberorg repository, this time it has a cool new effect “Cube Cylinder” from onestone. This picture would tell more.

Notice the details on the fishes, atlantis has received a lot of love too. Use compiz-git-all 1-click to get it. Note that these are unstable packages meant for testers and developers use only.

In other news, I went at the client’s place today for OpenOffice.org training, the lab setup that I required was not available, they had windows machine with OpenOffice.org installed which do not have all the goodies that Novell Edition that is available on openSUSE has.

So in a minute we converted one openSUSE 10.3 machine into a KIWI-LTSP server, PXE booted all the 10 clients from the server and the training session was safely conducted on that

• Cube cylinder
• Mag plugin
• Showmouse
• The new expo curve
• Updates to atlantis
• An excerpt about the wii head tracking plugin

Notes:

You will have to compile compiz fusion from source to get the cylinder and other new plugins. Some plugins may already be available in the Hardy beta, however.

I don't have a Wii controller, so I took a segment from Smspillaz's video (see below). Learn more at his blog.

Since everyone always asks about my theme, I'll just let you all know right now: This time, it's the Ubuntu Hardy "Human-Murrine" with customized colors (I like that they finally included this option for the Human theme!). The wallpaper is linked below. Using the "Glossy" metacity theme. Running Hardy Heron beta.

I'm also (as usual) using Kiba-Dock, SVN version. It's extremely alpha software, and quite buggy since it's not a release (I'm not complaining), but I like to run it for fun (and because it looks so cool).

I used Blender to make the little 3d compiz-cube, and I will upload the source files soon. Patience, guys. I intend to upload all the source videos and files as well for your tinkering benefit. It's coming.

EDIT: Sorry for forgetting to mention the video editor! I use kdenlive (as in the other fusioncasts). It's a little improved in the Hardy repos, but still extremely buggy. I'm waiting for all those MLT bugs to get fixed, guys!!

Please comment if I've forgotten to mention something. I'll set it aright.

Links:

Wallpaper
Dock on the bottom of the screen
Link to the website of the amazing cute movie with the rabbit (it's an open source movie!)
The original Wii head tracking video by Johnny Lee
Wii head tracking with compiz fusion by Smspillaz
Where the cool music came from

Kdenlive

Original video file + all source files coming soon!

Please email me at fusioncast at gmail dot com!
I am on IRC occasionally under the nick of gavintlgold.
Also, comment by clicking on the link below.

As you might have noticed, Simple-CCSM has changed a lot since my last blog post. Sorry for not keeping you up to date. I admit, I was a little bit too lazy to blog.

First of all, the interface. Well thanks to Mirco “MacSlow” Müller, who pointed me into the right direction, the UI now looks much more Gnome like.

The zoom page (aka accessibility page) was a little bit extended. You are now also able to configure ‘mag’ (aka area zoom).

There is now also an option for enabling ‘expo’ on the effects page.

Probably one of the most wanted change should be the global screen edge widget. At least I enjoy it not needing to start CCSM and searching my way through the settings for changing a few edge key bindings. Sadly this widget might have slowed the Simple-CCSM startup a bit down.

In order to clean my TO DO list up even further, I would like to get some suggestions for the profiles Simple-CCSM should provide. What profiles would you like to have? What should be activated, what disabled? Any suggestions for their names?

You can comment here or just send me an email to marex a_t opencompositing d_o_t org.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday tried building Compiz Fusion git packages, compiz-fusion-plugins-git packages, that has new cmake build system, are broken in home:cyberorg repo

Thursday getting everything organised for Symposium on Open Source Software this Saturday and Sunday

Phew!