Crystal-GL

KDE 3.x Window Decorations

Source (link to git-repo or to original if based on someone elses unmodified work): Add the source-code for this project on opencode.net

0
5.0
Description:

Crystal-GL is the next generation of my crystal window decoration theme.
By using OpenGL to render itself, it simulates refraction and light mapping! Check out screenshots! NOW!

I name the deco HIGHLY EXPERIMENTAL! Don't blame me, if it brakes your computer into two, if it crashes kde or makes it unusable. THIS IS BETA, NO WARRANTY.
If it breakes kwin, even on startup, remove your ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc file, to reset the kwin settings to default.

WARNING: You need to have write access to the 3D acceleration device, if exists. I.e.: /dev/dri/* or /dev/nv*. Otherwise the deco or kcontrol may crash.

It looks very similar to crystal, but has more eye-candy and smooth animations.

* Grabs your wallpaper and simulates bended glass, little lighting. You are able to specify the ior. ;)
* Support for button themes. Feel free to swamp me with cool themes. :D The themes are the same than the ones in crystal.
Knifty button theme by Enso

Disadvantages:
* Needs a working GL subsystem!!! Don't blame me, if yours is broken!
* Be careful on nvidia systems, if under load, the gl subsystem may become *real* slow, so my deco.
* Needs KDE >=3.2 and QT>=3.2 to compile.
* May be slower than any other deco
* May be fat
* May make you drool, and you might forget to eat, sleep or even breath!


-- INSTALL -------------------------
Basic Installation (from the console):
- Step 1
$ ./configure
OR: $ ./configure --prefix=`kde-config --prefix`
- Step 2
$ make
- Step 3 (as root)
# make install

If configure fails, check that you have both the Qt and KDE development headers installed. If you used a previous version before, you need to restart kde to use the upgraded version.
------------------------------------


Please give some feedback or tell me some improvement suggestions.
I would be very happy about some packages, like for Mandrake, Debian, Suse, Redhat, etc! PLEASE DON'T POST PACKAGES AS NEW CONTENT, just notify me and mail it to me, and I'll host them.

PROVIDED PACKAGES MAY NOT BE UP2DATE! Check out versions number!

Thanks to bitwit for each others help with the GL-deco stuff!

Enjoy! :)

Check out crystal (non-gl) at:
http://kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=13969


Sascha Hlusiak
Last changelog:

15 years ago

* All packages up to date now

0.8.1:
* Made look antialiased caption damn good. Enabling this is RECOMMENDED now!
* Fixed menu button image bug
* Split up rendering process into four for each border. Maybe speed up or (most likely) speed down. :-/ Should fix nvidia-slowdown-bug on maximized windows.
* Added feature: "Scroll" through windows, by using the mouse wheel on the title bar, as well as an option in the configuration dialog to disable this immediately :>
* Improved config dialog a little


0.8.0:
* Added extreme slick "handpainted" button theme (thank you, Marco)
* Fixed some bugs, which almost drove me crazy on my notebook.
* Little speed up in the initialization
* Improved my "button-rendering-engine" a lot. Now button tinting uses GL, too.
* Added more options for button tinting.
* Added option to make the hover effect fade
* Added option to disable the transparency feature completely (don't dare!)
* Added information of direct rendering and glx version to the control center preview
* Got rid of some unneccessary code, probably put in a lot of more unneccessary code.
* Added a benchmark feature for my internal use (ctrl+alt+shift+RightButton on the title bar)


0.7.5:
* Added Knifty button theme (thanks to Enso)
* Fixed buttons
* Little code rearrangement, nothing visible

175 comments
Comments/Ratings

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codelib

15 years ago

kernel 2.6.5-7.111.19-default
i830 kernel module from above

XFree86 4.3.99.902-43.28
The i810 driver w/ DRI that comes with above X version

Are their any particular logs or traces that would help?

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C

dralgebra

15 years ago

You may email me your most recent XFree log file /var/log/) and your kernel log.
You could also try to login from another computer, and start X from there. When if crashes, there may also be some error messages.

I use the i810 driver shipped with Xorg, but the i915 kernel module. Perhaps this helps?

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codelib

15 years ago

The i915 worked! Thanks again for your help.

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R3pairman

15 years ago

I use the Crystal theme as default and have recently tried out CrytalGL. I really like it, all the effects are great.
I was wondering if you were going to add the outline around the border? I think it really polishes off the look of Crystal but it's not available in CrystalGL.

Thanks

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shadowrm

16 years ago

its really intresting to see this in action because if i play ut2k4 and exit it -- no problems, however, by the same token if i play quake3/teamarena and exit, the system only 'looks' fine. but i cannot do anything. literally. if i try running a program using alt-f2 it will display the dialog box ( in which the text and background are garbled ) then when i try running any program the program starts to load and the xserver and freezes. i can, however, kill it using ctrl-alt-bcksp... any ideas why it would die in q3a and not ut2k4?? latest point release 1.32b for q3a and 3339 for ut2k4 on a SuSE 9.2 w/ nVidia 6800gt using 1.0-6629... thanks :D

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dralgebra

16 years ago

I've experienced similar effects on a nvidia machine, causing kwin/X to freeze, when creating a new window after X-Server switch.
Another thing is that the deco might use texture buffers, when you run a game. o_O I don't know where that comes from, nor how to stop it.

I know of the problems and try my best to fix them. Thank you for the hint.

That it freezes Quake and not UT may be just luck. On my notebook Quake 3 runs fine with my deco enabled, but I know this does depend on the graphics board and perhaps more...

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nuka

15 years ago

same thing happens with me after exiting from americas army, havent tried quake. ut2k4 works fine.

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hunt0r

16 years ago

what graphics chip do you have in your notebook?

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dralgebra

16 years ago

My notebook contains an Intel Extreme Graphics chip with 855GM chipset. It is working fine.

My desktop pc has a GeForce 2 MX 400, which is working good, but not perfect (with my deco).

I need a lot of time for testing this issue. :(

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franco

16 years ago

It is a very nice decoration, congratulations.

I would like to know the Theme/Style and the Icons Set you are using on the screenshots and if they are listed on kde-look. I have been trying with some themes/icons and some of them are too dark or too bright, yours seems very good.

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dralgebra

16 years ago

My style is Plastik.

Taskbarv2 makes my taskbar transparent (somewhere on kde-apps.org)

My iconset is Exquisite:
http://www.kde-look.org/content/show.php?content=14788

And my window decoration. :)

Glad you like it.

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hunt0r

16 years ago

I think that is the best window dec. i have ver seen and i like it very much but I have the problem that it becomes REALY slow when i have more than 10 windows open :( (about 7fps with this new benchmark system) if i have 9 or less windows open i get about 1000fps

PLEASE can you fix this?

P.S. I am using a nvidia card + suse 9.2 with the newest driver

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dralgebra

16 years ago

I've experienced this on a nvidia box too, but depending on the window size. A fullscreen wnd of 1280x1024 was damn slow, the 1024x768 window was fast.

Does it depend on the window size on your machine, or only the number of opened windows?

Strange... I try to optimize the rendering algorithm and hope to fix this problem. It does not occur on my notebook. o_O

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hunt0r

16 years ago

Yes exactly it depends on the window size too!
But if i have lets say 15 or so smaller windows open it gets slow too.

P.S. I have a resolution of 1280x1024

I would be so happy if this would be fixed I like this deco so damn much :)

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Halcyon-X

16 years ago

How about making the light source dynamic? I.e. you move a window around, and the lighting moves such that the shadows/light are relative to, say, a corner of the desktop, instead of the shading being static like it is now.

Also, if there were an option for adding a bevel so the window title and border stands out more that would be cool (and the bevel could be shaded dynamically as well).

The GL window decorations we've been seeing are quite nice, I can't wait to see the first GL style!

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dralgebra

16 years ago

Unfortunately I had a lot of troubles getting lighting to work, because of my odd vector geometries.
So I decided to forget simulated lighting and use a fixed light-map instead. I render just some quads with a brightness and transparency value onto my deco, thus creating the illusion of lighting. :)
With this technique I am unable at the moment to create dynamics and animation. Perhaps I try again soon, but I won't promise anything. Anyway good idea, thank you for this suggestion.

And I already thought of different shaped borders, not only round, as current. Maybe there is an option coming for this, in future.

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nuka

16 years ago

can you cap the fps(as an option) to 75fps? im getting double that and i dont want it heating up my gpu for nothing.

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dralgebra

16 years ago

The benchmark feature is useful for me only!! It does tell you how many fps it could render, it never does, but it helps me finding the fastest rendering algorithms.

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nuka

16 years ago

thats pretty cool. i thought it was the same as gl gears where it is constanyly drawing something.

anyway, this really is great. ive suggested this before, but...

can you have the option of having the lighting come from the bottom so that there is no visible line seperating the titlebar from the border?

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dralgebra

16 years ago

My deco is not a game, it has no permanent animations. I render the deco only, when there is need to. Most of the time my deco is sleeping, when you don't move a window, etc. So there is absolutely no overhead and misuse of the gpu.

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aivs

16 years ago

why not real transparent?

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C

dralgebra

16 years ago

Not enough sample code. Not that easy, especially when combined with OpenGL. I'll wait until KDE 3.4 is released, with composite enabled kwin. It will more likely be possible in Crystal (non-gl) rather than Crystal-GL.
Just wait and let me decide if it is possible, or provide a patch your own and help me.

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seventhguardian

16 years ago

Hi! I think the gentoo ebuild isn't working... Can you submit the gentoo ebuild to gentoo?

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C

dralgebra

16 years ago

The ebuild is working perfectly on my machine. You need to place it into a gentoo portage overlay and generate a digest, before you can emerge it.
I may submit it to the portage, when I have fixed some bugs and won't update the deco so frequently anymore. Or perhaps someone else submits it before me. :) But I think it is too early.

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forghoon

16 years ago

I am new in Fedora Core 2
i installed the rpm file, it installed fine but i don't know where should i look for it to run the comand ./config and the rest

please help me with it thanx

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15 years ago

* All packages up to date now

0.8.1:
* Made look antialiased caption damn good. Enabling this is RECOMMENDED now!
* Fixed menu button image bug
* Split up rendering process into four for each border. Maybe speed up or (most likely) speed down. :-/ Should fix nvidia-slowdown-bug on maximized windows.
* Added feature: "Scroll" through windows, by using the mouse wheel on the title bar, as well as an option in the configuration dialog to disable this immediately :>
* Improved config dialog a little


0.8.0:
* Added extreme slick "handpainted" button theme (thank you, Marco)
* Fixed some bugs, which almost drove me crazy on my notebook.
* Little speed up in the initialization
* Improved my "button-rendering-engine" a lot. Now button tinting uses GL, too.
* Added more options for button tinting.
* Added option to make the hover effect fade
* Added option to disable the transparency feature completely (don't dare!)
* Added information of direct rendering and glx version to the control center preview
* Got rid of some unneccessary code, probably put in a lot of more unneccessary code.
* Added a benchmark feature for my internal use (ctrl+alt+shift+RightButton on the title bar)


0.7.5:
* Added Knifty button theme (thanks to Enso)
* Fixed buttons
* Little code rearrangement, nothing visible

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0.8.1
updated Jan 26 2005
added Dec 19 2004
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