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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:00:23)
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Are you running a composite manager? (eg xcompmgr)
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:00:39)
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Oops, nevermind my last post - that would be needed for true transparency, not conky's pseudo-transparency.
How do you you set your desktop wallpaper? Some wallpaper tools do not actually put the image on the root window, if this is the case Conky cannot get the background image. Feh will set the wallpaper to the root window.
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:00:50)
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Good, then we have a solution. We just have to put the pieces together.
Your current method of setting the background is managed by your file manager (pcmanfm?). This does not really set the image to the root window but instead it creates a new layer or 'desktop window'. Feh, on the other hand, sets the image to the root window.
Conky's pseudo-transparency just clips the relevant portion of the root window image to use as it's own background.
A few potential solutions:
1) Set the desktop window image as you have been, but also set the root window to the very same image (scaled the same, etc) and things should work well. The downside is a need for setting new images twice, but these can be automated at startup as long as you are not regularly changing your wallpaper. The upside of this solution is that it may be the simplest to implement needing the fewest changes from your current setup.
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2) Set the desktop window to be transparent and just set your wallpaper through feh. This would be my recommended solution if you can set your file manager's desktop window to be transparent. That may be a big if as I don't know how to do it and it may not be possible without compositing.
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3) Use 'true' transparency on conky with xcompmgr and transset. This would require installing a couple packages and having one of them run in the background, but xcompmgr (in contrast to some compositors) is very lightweight. The upside is this is the most 'universal' solution so that future tools that also use transparency would be easier to set up.
Edit: an additional advantage of option 3 is that once it is set up, you can still use pcmanfm (or whichever manager you use) to change your wallpaper as often as you like and it will work as you'd expect it to without any additional hassle.
Last edited by Trilby (2012-01-29 17:45:44)
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:01:08)
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I expect the problem with 2 is that when the desktop-window is set to transparent it needs compositing to actually be transparent. Without a composit manager, it just appears as a solid color.
Some DE's (certainly KDE. and I'm pretty sure GNOME) come with compositing by default. XFCE is a good DE, but being at the lighter end it has some characteristics of a simpler WM: it gives you more choice in how you want to set up your system, but this means you also have to do a little more to set up the system.
I suspect you'd be very happy with option 2 from above as long as you install and startup xcompmgr. You can put the command
xcompmgr &
into the revelant start up script of XFCE (sorry I don't recall where it is, I didn't use XCFE for long).
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:01:26)
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Would you have the same problem with openbox? No ... you'd have other problems!
If you try to use the same file manager (again I'm assuming this is pcmanfm) to manage a desktop window with desktop icons then you would face the exact same problem.
If you try openbox without a desktop window (no desktop icons) then you'd sidestep the problem as conky's pseudo-transparency would work "out of the box".
The problem is coming from two different background images being in conflict. You will have this on any WM or DE where you have a file manager setting a desktop window image and something else looking for a root window image.
Is there a reason you don't want to try xcompmgr?
If you stick with solution 2 above and just run
pacman -S xcompmgr
<snip pacman output here>
xcompmgr &
I think you might be happy with the results.
EDIT: I just realized it may not be *quite* that simple. You may need xcompmgr-dana from the AUR instead of the "vanilla" xcompmgr. But still that'd be pretty easy.
Last edited by Trilby (2012-01-29 18:17:19)
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:01:48)
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Thunar? *confused* *googling* Ah, I forgot, XFCE does the manages the desktop window itself.
Everything above would still apply, except if you switch to openbox you would not have the option to have desktop icons unless you installed an additional tool to manage them.
As for those errors, I've never seen those. I guess I lied about how simple it'd be ... it usually is.
"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman
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Last edited by Dogzilla (2024-10-17 10:02:01)
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1) I've done this, and it works
2) I've tried this one but doesn't work
3) About this one, I will try to make it work.
I can confirm that 1) works, 2) does not work since the XFCE menu does not allow to set nothing above the root window.
3) seems tough
4)
You might try this:
-> create a symlink pointing to your desired wallpaper
ln -s myDesidesdWallpaper.jpg wallpaperLink
-> set XFCE wallpaper as wallpaperLink
-> add to your /etc/rc.local:
xv -root /home/yourUsername/wallpaperLink &
Last edited by keen90 (2012-04-03 17:13:40)
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# Needed for transparency
own_window_argb_visual yes
Add this option to your conkyrc and this should do it. Might want to set "own_window_type" to "desktop" also.
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I solved this problem with this, give it a try.
own_window no
own_window_transparent yes
own_window_argb_visual yes
own_window_argb_value 0
own_window_type override
own_window_hints undecorate,sticky,skip_taskbar,skip_pager
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