Window Titlebar Transparency? [RESOLVED]

[SuperRoboWizard]

I am currently using the "MediterraneanShiki" theme, which gives the window titlebar a nice noise background. I'd like to make that semitransparent, sort of like the Windows Aero effect. I've looked everywhere, and the only answers I've come across have been "use Compiz" or "try an Emerald theme". I've tried both of these in may different ways, but to no avail. Even after I've run compiz --replace, any changes I make in the compiz control panel thingy do absolutely nothing. On top of that, many of the settings sub-menus mentioned are completely missing from my control panel. And emerald simply doesn't work. running the emerald --replace command in the console gives no output. It just sits there, a blinking cursor on a blank line until I force quit the command. Does anybody know of an alternative way to achieve a transparency effect?

[phd21]

HI SuperRoboWizard,

Perhaps the information and links in this recent post below can help you with this.
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 8&t=206660

I know that you can easily set various transparency options in Linux Mint KDE, but I do not know which edition of Linux Mint you are using.

FYI: It would help everyone here to have more information about your system's setup: like what edition and version of Linux Mint are you using, Cinnamon, Mate, KDE (my favorite), or Xfce; version 17, 17.1, 17.2, or What?; 32-bit or 64-bit? Some more information about your hardware would be useful as well. You can get this information from top of your system menu's Welcome screen, System Information program(s), and the best is by typing in "inxi -Fxz" from a console terminal prompt, which you can then copy and paste back here. This information helps anyone here in this forum to be able to answer any questions you may have better , thanks. You can even add this information (abbreviated) to your signature using the control panel link in the above left of this forum screen; then when you post a question or reply to one, that info will automatically be there, ex: see mine and others below their posts.

[SuperRoboWizard]

Info should be in my sig now. I checked the link, but sadly there isn't anything about transparency, just about how to change the window theme.

[MtnDewManiac]

I know that you can easily set various transparency options in Linux Mint KDE, but I do not know which edition of Linux Mint you are using.

<COUGH>This thread is posted in the Cinnamon section<COUGH>.

Other than that, yes, I agree that it helps to actually post version (et cetera) information when asking for help, so that the process of helping does not become akin to pulling teeth on the installment plan.

Regards,
MDM

[phd21]

Hi MDM,

Uh Duh, good point. i sometimes forget to check that. But, the link was for Cinnamon. And because I answer a fair amount of posts, the FYI asking for more information is generic, although at times I will edit that part for a specific situation and or forum.

[JosephM]

Cinnamon doesn't really support this currently.

[SuperRoboWizard]

If Cinnamon doesn't support it atm, is there another window manager I could use that actually works for me?
Also, why hasn't someone written the code for this yet?

[phd21]

HI SuperRoboWizard,

You could install Linux Mint KDE which does support Transparency it has various transparency themes and other various transparency options ways as well. But, read on ...

Just out of curiosity, why is having "Window Titlebar Transparency" so important to you? What is it that you are doing where not having a transparent window title is a problem and why?

Are you sure that there are not various transparency (opacity) options and themes available for your current edition of Linux Mint and or through "compiz"?

Here are some other links you might want to review:
Note: in some of these they use various configuration editors "gconf", or "dconf". I do not know which one is for the current editions of Linux Mint, you will have to try that yourself. There is a video link below on this too.

Is there a way to make the window title bars transparent in 14.10?
http://askubuntu.com/questions/541033/u ... -title-bar

http://askubuntu.com/questions/456494/u ... ansparency

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2279592

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Compiz
Video on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xujflyr0ci8
=======================================================================================
Google search --> linux mint cinnamon transparent windows
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=e ... nt+windows

* Very good article - Spice Up Your Cinnamon Themes – It’s Easy!
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/spice-up-y ... -its-easy/

linux mint cinnamon transparent themes
https://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=e ... ent+themes

12 Awesome Themes for Mint 17.1 Cinnamon - look for those that have "transparency effects" options
http://www.tuxarena.com/2014/11/10-awes ... -cinnamon/

Cinnamon Spices - Better Transparency
http://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/34

How to: Configuring conditional window transparency in Compiz
http://arstechnica.com/information-tech ... in-compiz/

How can I make my windows transparent ...
http://askubuntu.com/questions/133286/h ... use-scroll


Hope this helps ...

[SuperRoboWizard]

All of these answers either rely on compiz (completely broken for me), use the dconf-editor (which doesn't work for me either), refer to making the entire window transparent (which isn't really what I want), or simply have no working solution. I want window transparency because I spend many hours each day on my computer. If I'm going to be looking at something for a long time, I'd prefer that it looks nice.

If KDE has window transparency effects, is there any way to replace my current desktop with the KDE one without getting all of the extra KDE stuff that comes with the package from the software manager? It looks like it will install a billion things I don't want. How do I install just the desktop manager and the settings menu?

[phd21]

Hi SuperRoboWizard,

I know this is the Cinnamon part of this forum, but I was asked, so here you go...

1. The only safe way to get all the KDE desktop effects including all the various transparency (translucency & opacity) options is to install Linux Mint KDE. If you have a USB Flash drive that is 16gb or larger, then you could easily create a full version of Linux Mint KDE on it and try these out for yourself to make sure it is what you want. Even in KDE, I cannot make just the window title bar transparent without the entire border being transparent (I don't think); not the actual window contents but just the Window Title Bar & window borders, although you could make the window contents transparent on various levels as well. I do not think you can install all of the KDE desktop effects safely into Cinnamon; and why do that, just install & use KDE. Below is a video of my KDE desktops using a "transparent oxygen" theme and there are many more available; I also show a screen shot of some of the various translucency (transparency/opacity) options too. There are a lot of desktop customizations and settings in KDE. I have been using this incredible and wonderful Linux Mint KDE desktop for awhile now, and I still do not know all of the settings & possibilities. And unfortunately because my current 10 year old computer hardware cannot handle it, I cannot even use the really wonderful special effects that require "OpenGL".

2. Your "Compiz" and "dconf-editor" should be working in Cinnamon. Try re-installing them.. Here is a link below on how to correctly install "Compiz" and "dconf-editor" - read the comments too. Then you could use the various web links I provided before to customize your transparency.
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1621

Those links I provided seem to show a lot of various ways to get transparency working in Cinnamon using various themes, compiz, & possibly even just the Windows Title Bar too, etc...

And if this does not help, then you will have to try something else, or ask some else.

To view the very short video, click the picture below, or right click and open in a new tab. Note that the transparency effects look much better on your actual screen than in this video, (see pic below), and see how the window title bar shows what's behind it (transparent) when I scroll through my virtual desktops... A note of caution, I did notice one problem with very transparent settings, when you have multiple windows overlapping one another, it's hard to see the "TitleBar" and its Min, Max, Close buttons, on the various open windows.

Desktop_10-23-2015-2a.gif

Pic of some translucency (transparency/opacity) options in KDE.

Desktop_TranslucenyOpt3.jpg

[JosephM]

2. Your "Compiz" and "dconf-editor" should be working in Cinnamon. Try re-installing them.. Here is a link below on how to correctly install "Compiz" and "dconf-editor" - read the comments too. Then you could use the various web links I provided before to customize your transparency.
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1621

dconf-editor works fine in Cinnamon but compiz does not. Cinnamon uses muffin (a fork of gnomes mutter). Since cinnamon is basically a plugin for muffin, it can't be used without it.

[SuperRoboWizard]

Will this uninstall everything? I have my home folder in a separate partition. Is there no way to just replace the cinnamon desktop part with the kde desktop and leave the rest?

[phd21]

Will this uninstall everything? I have my home folder in a separate partition. Is there no way to just replace the cinnamon desktop part with the kde desktop and leave the rest?

Hi SuperRoboWizard,

Honestly, I do not know, perhaps someone else here does. But, I do not think that it is a good idea to do that. I think you would be much better off just installing Linux Mint KDE over top of the "Cinnamon" partition, takes 15 -20 minutes or less, or if you have enough hard drive space install KDE along side of Cinnamon and any other OS's you have on this drive, after you have made a good backup and copied anything personal that you want to keep. If your home folder is on another partition, then all your personal documents, data, email client data, media (music, pics, videos), etc... should be ok. As for software & applications (some of which are stored in your home folder as hidden folders and files), the best thing to do there when switching to another OS is to re-install them because I do not know what ramifications (problems) might occur if you tried to copy (or backup and restore) their settings from Cinnamon to KDE. I do not know if KDE stores, and more importantly uses, those differently. I personally do not understand how having your "/home" folder stored in another partition on the same hard drive benefits you or anyone else. If your hard drive fails, your still screwed, if you do not have an external backup to a large USB flash drive or external USB hard drive. I fully understand having a separate "NTFS Data" partition for storing personal stuff (including application data) which can then be shared among other operating systems and their partitions on one computer, like having Ms Windows, Linux Mint, maybe another Linux Mint OS.

FYI: There is an excellent program called "Aptik" that can backup applications and their settings and restore them which is super convenient. I use "Aptik" to backup all my Linux Mint KDE applications, settings, customizations (themes), etc... to an external hard drive, so that if I needed to because of a hard drive failure or corruption, etc..., or just wanted to do a fresh install of Linux Mint KDE, then I could do that, by re-installing a fresh Linux Mint, then installing "Aptik" and restoring my "Aptik" backup of all my applications and their settings, customizations, etc...

Aptik website - their "homepage" has links to download the 32-bit or 64-bit easy installer Aptik ".deb" file.
http://www.teejeetech.in/2014/01/introducing-aptik.html
or use the PPA below

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:teejee2008/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install aptik

In order to run "Aptik" in my Linux Mint KDE, after installing it, I have to open a console terminal, and type in "sudo aptik-gtk". Probably a good idea to copy the "Aptik" easy installer ".deb" file to your external good drive, or a Flash drive, so that you can install Aptik on a fresh install of Linux Mint and then restore the Aptik backups.

Hope this helps ...

[SuperRoboWizard]

I got KDE to work great by just switching the session from the login screen! The only problem now is some programs seem to ignore the widget style, instead using something that appears similar to Windows 95. Blech. How can I fix this?

[MtnDewManiac]

The only problem now is some programs seem to ignore the widget style

Do the offending applications use Qt, Gtk2, or Gtk3?

Regards,
MDM

[SuperRoboWizard]

I don't know... But I can give you some examples...

tilda, firefox, the software manager, synaptic, gthumb, nemo, gksu, playonlinux, and several others...

What it looks like:
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 6209221758
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?fi ... 1016488986

[sikejsudjek]

This is one thing I'd like Cinnamon to bring back - transparent window title bars aka windows aero. This was the most requested change users asked for with windows 10, and its a shame you can no longer tweak Cinnamon to do it anymore.

[JosephM]

This is one thing I'd like Cinnamon to bring back - transparent window title bars aka windows aero. This was the most requested change users asked for with windows 10, and its a shame you can no longer tweak Cinnamon to do it anymore.

My memory could be poor but I don't remember this ever being possible in Cinnamon.

[MtnDewManiac]

If Cinnamon doesn't support it atm, is there another window manager I could use that actually works for me?

I use Xfce, and its window manager (xfwm) allows me to increase transparency (translucency?) by placing my mouse cursor on a window's title bar and scrolling left or right. The only caveat is that this affects the entire window (not just the title bar). But it's handy for when you want to decrease your productivity by working in one full screen window whilst viewing Netflix through it, lol.

IDK how well Xfwm would work under Cinnamon. I'd guess not at all (but I could be mistaken, I suppose). My suggestion would be, if you wish to use Xfwm, install Xfce (preferably by itself instead of an "add-on" to a current DE installation) and use it in its intended DE. Lest you think that I made that statement because Xfce is my DE of choice, I would also suggest you install MATE if you wanted to try out its WM.

Regards,
MDM

[JosephM]

I use Xfce, and its window manager (xfwm) allows me to increase transparency (translucency?) by placing my mouse cursor on a window's title bar and scrolling left or right. The only caveat is that this affects the entire window (not just the title bar).

Cinnamon has this feature as well using the mouse scroll wheel.