Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

You can set for each corner, if it should be round.

There is an option for simulating lighting, or not. If enabled, there comes a decent 3D effect on the borders, by simulating light. You can see this effect on my first screenshot.

This is rendered smooth, so without any sharp edges. I thought of this, too, let's see what I can do. :) But perhaps I should modify the refracting algorithm, too, to simulate something like gems!? - Dec 21 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

When you update a window decoration, which has already been used in the current kwin session, you need to restart kwin to make it use the new installed one. Do this by calling `kwin --replace`, or you stay with the old version.

I changed some stuff and moved the opengl initialization outside the constructor and *bla*.
So kwin still freezes on login in 0.7.2? What distrubution do you use, and which kde version? These problems should have been fixed for now, I'm suprised that it isn't.
What do the crappy windows contain? The old content of whatever was there before? Move other windows around, if the windows contain crap, it is most likely that the opengl subsystem could not be initialized. Please run kcontrol within a konsole and post me error message, that occur when selecting my deco.
Perhaps a restart of X can solve the problems? Looks strange.. - Dec 21 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

This deco simulates glass, and the glass is tintet in the color, defined in the color section of kcontrol for the titlebar. If this color is set to white, the deco is fully transparent, if it is black, it is black and fully opaque. So the brightnes controls the amount of transparency. And the color controls the color of the glass. Unfortunately there is no brighting effect for now, so the glass will always be darker, than the background image. Like real glass does. - Dec 21 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

Of course I will maintain crystal, even more than crystal-gl, because crystal is rock-solid. As far as I can improve it, I will.

Crystal-GL has too many bugs and glitches, it crashes on my computer sometimes, too.

It hurts, when people use crystal without it's transparency feature, because I put so much effort in making it work. *g* But I don't mind, glad anyway that you like it.
But crystal (and crystal-gl) need more button themes, c'mon, artists. ;)

Crystal is the first choice. Not everyone has a working gl subsystem, even I don't. o_O - Dec 20 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

Please try the current source code and compile it your own. There is one known bug fixed and the mandrake rpm is not up to date.
Perhaps you might suffer from this one bug, but there are more than one, I promise. ;)

If you can be a bi more specific, when it dies, it would be very helpful. - Dec 19 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

Icons are from exquisite icon theme:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=14788 - Dec 19 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

This would require the composite extension of xorg, and afaik it is not possible for a window decoration to access the windows below. This is part of the xcompmgr, which composes the windows together for displaying.

This is not possible for now, but let's see, what kde 4.0 will offer. :) - Dec 19 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

It should work with the xfree opengl subsystem too, you don't need ATI hardware acceleration.
But with ATI drivers it could be hard to impossible. :-S - Dec 19 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

hups. Should be

#include <stdlib.h> - Dec 19 2004
Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 175 comments

Yeah, add a
#include

to the list of includes at the top of file client/crystalclient.cc

Sorry about that, fixed in next release... - Dec 19 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Make sure, the deco is installed into the location, where kde is installed. In fc3 this is /usr, afaik.

So make sure, you run
./configure --prefix=/usr
make
su -c make install

After installation is finished, you should be able to select crystal in the window decoration section of kcontrol.

Alternativly you can install the mandrake rpm, which might be compatible with fc3. - Dec 19 2004
locksh (vlock)

Various Stuff by kg6791 13 comments

I find this tool useful, but there already is a vlock available, and some other console locking tools, wich maybe more secure and have more features:
ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/utils/console/

And I wonder, what this has to do with kde. o_O

Good idea anyway. - Dec 18 2004
tux

Wallpaper Other by zivotinjica 6 comments

Yeah, tux is so evil and windows the poor victim.

Damn, enjoy your freedom, kiddies, and don't blame microsoft for anything. Get rid of it, don't stamp on it. Linux has nothing to do with Windows, it is not the better windows, nor it is hostile to windows.

Don't use linux, because you are hating windows!! That's not the thought of open source. - Dec 02 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

I have included the default button theme in version 0.9.0, you'll find it in the /pics subdir.

There is a short README. Modify the png images, use embedtool to generate the tiles.h header file, copy it to the crystal client source dir and recompile it, to test it.
Then mail the png images to me, that I can build them into my decoration.

Feel free to mail me at spam84 at gmx dot de, if you have further questions or problems.

And a crystal style would rule, yeah!! ;) But I don't have enough time and cola for that. - Dec 02 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

My email is spam84@gmx.de, not 48. Hope, it works. I did not get any email from you. - Nov 28 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

You got my mails? Please reply. - Nov 28 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Thank you very much, I will look at your changes later today. I already divided the option into two, one for top round corners, and one for bottom round corners, in the upcoming version 0.9.1. Perhaps I adapt yours, I don't know.

I already tried to use the QGLWidget as the widget, but I got strange problems, because my deco hang, when initializing and I don't know why. Perhaps nvidia is to blame, I will try it again later. Perhaps we can stay in contact for that. - Nov 26 2004
Linux Tree

Nature by alexdark 5 comments

I like the picture, but I would prefer to see wallpapers without religious slogans, like that. - Nov 23 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

I am a college student (first semester) and I find quite some time to work on this deco. It was not as hard as it looks like, because the deco is basically simple and there is no time consuming artwork to be done for it.

I have two possibilities. Making my deco xorg-6.8 compatible to use real transparency, but then I am unable to use some image effects.

Or I try to use OpenGL to render the image. :) I am unable to use real transparency but I would have to power to render awsome effects, like refraction.
It's not possible to use both methods the same time. Let's see what can be done more easily...
- Nov 22 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Yes, I know. But I will wait until KDE 3.4, because then KDE starts using the xorg features. There will be transparent konsole and kicker and kwin gets updated and then I will see how to make use of this features in my deco. - Nov 21 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Could you please run the following command in the crystal source directory:

make -f Makefile.cvs

This should rebuild the configure script and perhaps makes it compatible with your 64 bit system.

If this does not work, try to compile the source manually and tell me, whether it works. Make fails with a command, so copy-paste this command and replace the lib to lib64.

If one of these works, let me know and I will try to find a solution for integration into my source package. - Nov 20 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Are you able to compile any source? Maybe your gcc or your libtools / binutils are not 64 bit compatible. I think that your kde is 64 bit, but somehow the compiler / linker which would make my deco is unable to handle the 64 bit library of kde. Which program gives you the error? Is there some more log of it?

I don't have any clue about 64 bit, sorry. - Nov 18 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Sorry, I have no Fedora machine, so I cannot build a rpm for this, but it should be possible to build one from source. If anyone built one, please send it to me and I will include it here.

Neither I have a x86_64 machine on which I could test. My code is not 64 bit compatible? What happens when you try to compile it? - Nov 18 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

The buttons "above" and "below" were added in 0.9.0b along with their functionality. If you see the buttons, they should work, and on my system they do work. If you select the keep-above function in the window menu, does this work? And does this modify the shape of the button?
The 0.9.0b was released quite one or two days after the 0.9.0, so I think that you have the latest version installed, and that the buttons should work.

I have 5 image effects for the background, and there is one called "Brighten". Well, when you choose a negative amount on this effect, the image gets darkened. Or you can "fade" to a dark color, this should work fine, too. - Nov 15 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Hi, Thank you very much. :) Glad that you like my deco...

I have thought about a crystal-like style for KDE, but I don't think that it is a good Idea. It might slow down a bit, but most windows will become hard to read. And it would look bad, when you put windows on top of other windows. This is a crystal problem too, that it uses pseudo transparency and no real transparency. Perhaps kwin will become able to make use of xorg-6.8.0 transparency.

The thing, I want to do the most, is to get crystal to use OpenGL!! It might speed up things a lot, if you have a good graphics card, and I would be able to implement realtime (pseudo) refractions, creating effect of real glass. :-D Unfortunately I did not have success in this, yet. But this are my plans for the future. If i have enough time... - Nov 12 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Thanks a lot!
I love working on crystal, and why not add desired features to satisfy it's users even more!? :P
And the new buttons were much easier to implement than I expected. I'm glad that you like them. - Nov 07 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

done! - Nov 06 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Thank you!

Yes, these buttons are new. I only implemented the shade button, which is actual very useless (right tap on minimize button, if available), but I did not implemented the Keep-Above-Others and Keep-Below-Others buttons, because there are quite some things to make for this, I need to design the buttons, and write the code and I did not think the buttons are very usefull at all.

But I will implement them, it should not be that hard, and they will be in the next version. - Nov 05 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Sorry. After a few very quick tests, I found out that one can only set the opacity of the top-level window. A window, which is managed by kwin, consist of a main frame and two children, the client window and the window decoration. When I fade the toplevel window, the client is affected, and when I fade the windeco itselt, the xcompmgr does not notice it.

I have no problem to fade the whole window, but I want to fade the title bar only. So it is not possible for now, either xcompmgr needs to be improved a lot, or the kwin api needs to be enhanced. :(

So I will stay at my current rendering method of pseudo transparency. - Oct 29 2004
suse 9.2 live cd

KDE Plasma Screenshots by aivs 2 comments

It is available already, and can be downloaded from some mirrors, for example here:

ftp://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/suse/ftp.suse.com/suse/i386/live-cd-9.2/ - Oct 25 2004
Powered by debian

Wallpapers Debian by madzzoni 2 comments

What did you change in this update? Or is it just to be on the frontpage again? - Oct 24 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

When you disallow moving and resizing when maximized, crystal respects this and you really can't move and resize the window. At least on my system, KDE 3.3.1 / crystal 0.8.0, moving and resizing is impossible when the option is active. I may hide the borders of the window, when the window is in this state, is it this, what you want?

I see your point, and I try to put the buttons in the right positions, when the window is maximized and moving is locked, so that you can just close the window, when moving to the topleft (or topright) corner of the screen. This will come in the next release, which will have a bunch of additional fixes and improvements.

Thank you, I did not recognize this glitch, because I have the option disabled. :) - Oct 21 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

I'm glad that you like my deco. :)

The donkey is a cow and the program is "cowsay". You may find it here:
http://www.nog.net/~tony/warez/cowsay.shtml - Oct 13 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Yes, crystal does work with KDE 3.2 and above, like KDE 3.3. I don't know, what packages you need with Suse, but it should work, when you have all the needed installed. Please post the file that is missing.

You could try to install a Suse 9.1 package, I know that it has worked for one guy, using Suse 9.0. - Oct 08 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

There are at least two rpm packages for SuSE 9.1. Perhaps they work in Suse 9.0, too. This windec needs KDE 3.2 or above to run. - Oct 08 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

feel free to create an icon theme for me. :) I will try to make the button selectable. And of course you can define the position of the buttons yourself, in the control center. - Oct 02 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Yeah, finally I got it. Beware of the almighty Mandrake 10 rpm package in all of it's glory! :) - Sep 29 2004
My 2 cents for "Aero"

Desktop Concepts by zammi 23 comments

You can define the window border size and the titlebar height separately. So you can tweak crystal to look very similar to Aero, except the buttons. - Sep 25 2004
My 2 cents for "Aero"

Desktop Concepts by zammi 23 comments

this is a screenshot, which looks similar to the window deco of aero:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=16490
And this is the window deco, he is using:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13969
Which was created by me. X) ROFL, sorry.

But maybe I can add an extra button-theme that it lookes more like Aero? - Sep 24 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Hi! Thank you very much.
I have seen this secreenshots today, too and they reminded me a lot of myown windeco. ;) I haven't seen Aero before.

I don't see a gradient on the window border, maybe it is too small. I don't know if I will implement this.

My buttons are saved in png format and then exportet to a format, that its directls included into the program (no external xpm files), because of the alpha channel. I may use external files, it would be easier for others to make their own buttons, but I decided not to do, because now there are only few files installed, and I don't want to change this behaviour. The png images are 14x14 pixel in size, but I can change this.
Feel free to create some images for me (8 images for now: shade, help, unsticky, sticky, min, close, restore, max), and I might add a button-theme-selector to crystal. And I need some time to put my source code in order. *g* - Sep 24 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

When you have different wallpapers on your multiple kde-desktops, crystal needs to track the desktop changes, to update it's internal copy of the wallpaper. If you have set one wallpaper for all your virtual desktops, uncheck the option, because there is no need for crystal to update the wallpaper. I cannot check, if there is the same wallpaper set for all desktops or different. Maybe I find a solution soon. - Sep 23 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Check out version 0.8.0b with the missing aclocal file in it's source package. I hope it will compile good now. - Sep 22 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Option for mouse over effect added, as requested. ;) Check out crystal-0.8.0. - Sep 21 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Hi,
Yeah, I threw so much energy in the transparency effects, but it is no problem to keep it away. When you set the fade intensity to 100 % now, the CPU does not calculate any transparency and the deco works a lot faster. Check out the now released version 0.8.0. - Sep 21 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Hi,
You can draw a thin frame around the border, but it is only one pixel bold. And in the recently released version you are able to define its color, maybe black. - Sep 21 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

When you had a previous version of a window deco installed and running, you need to restart kwin to make it use the new upgraded version. Did you do so? - Sep 08 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

yes exactly. I noticed this yesterday and I try to fix this in my next release.
Thank you for the hint. :) - Aug 30 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Hm, sorry, but both things work just fine for me.
The amount of transparency applies just when I press apply,
and right aligned title bar text works for me too. Nevertheless it's ugly and I try to improve this in the next release, next to the other improvement suggestions. :) Maybe you can reproduce this bug for me, or you find a way to get it work. Generally it should work.

I try to implement some of the features. when I have enough time to do it.

I'm glad that this window deco is so well received. - Aug 29 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

:) This is very cool, but not because of me, so remember that kde-look.org is the first place where to search for updates. I'm very happy that my kwin deco is popular enough to find it's way into portage.. - Aug 16 2004
Crystal

KDE 3.x Window Decorations by dralgebra 541 comments

Yeah, this is a clear error message, you need this file. :)
Search the package for your distro, which offers the file, the package may be named just expat (perhaps there is a special "devel" version of this package). Install the library and this error should be gone. Or is it already installed? - Jul 24 2004