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#1 2016-07-18 10:25:36

Rexhasta
Member
Registered: 2016-07-18
Posts: 4

[SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

Hello,

I'm using Cinnamon DE with Muffin WM and I've noticed some program windows (such as Calculator, Gedit) have a shadow effect while the windows for other programs don't.  If you take a look at the attached pic you'll what I mean.  I'm trying to enable shadows on ALL windows, so everything looks like the bottom screenshot in the pic.  I would ideally like to achieve this within the Cinnamon/Muffin configs and without using other WMs.  I've been looking through the configs but I haven't found exactly what to tweak for this.  Does anyone know how I can achieve this?

http://i.imgur.com/2pbCfIw.jpg
Moderator edit [ewaller] converted over sized image to url link https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … s_and_code

Last edited by Rexhasta (2016-08-08 07:15:41)

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#2 2016-07-18 11:47:40

M4he
Member
Registered: 2011-08-11
Posts: 75

Re: [SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

If I interpret this correctly, the Gnome apps (calculator, Gedit) are using the GTK3 CSD (Client-side decorations) which include a shadow defined by the GTK3 part of your theme. They are rendered by the client not by Muffin.
Your other applications however get their decoration rendered by Muffin instead. If I recall correctly, Muffin still uses Metacity themes. That means, the definitions for their shadows (or the lack thereof) reside in the Metacity part of your theme.

The only solution to achieve your goal would be to modify the files within the "metacity-1" folder of your theme and add/fix the shadow definitions.


Arch - makes me feel right at /home

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#3 2016-07-19 08:48:09

Rexhasta
Member
Registered: 2016-07-18
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

I think you're exactly right about the cause of this issue because it seems that is IS all the Gnome apps that have the shadows.  And Muffin does use Metacity themes, I've been tinkering with the xml theme files but so far I've had no luck achieving shadows on the windows being rendered by Muffin and haven't been able to find any relevant solutions online.  If anyone knows more about adding shadows in Metacity themes please let me know what to add to the theme file.

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#4 2016-07-19 09:43:14

M4he
Member
Registered: 2011-08-11
Posts: 75

Re: [SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

Hmm now that I think about it I vaguely remember that the Metacity themes might not have shadow definitions at all and Muffin/Metacity just add them on their own. Muffin should however display them per default unless you are running on software compositing.

Are you perhaps running it in a VM? I've read people missing the shadows on the latest Mint Cinnamon release if they don't install the latest guest-additions since the shadows seem to depend on hardware rendering.


Arch - makes me feel right at /home

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#5 2016-07-20 10:35:14

Rexhasta
Member
Registered: 2016-07-18
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

Actually that may be the problem then because I AM running it in a VM (VMware on Windows 7 host).  And whenever I log in to the desktop in my Arch VM, Cinnamon gives me the message "Running in software rendering mode".  I just checked my VMware settings and realized that I didn't have accelerated graphics enabled, so I enabled that.  When I log in now, it's not running in software rendering mode anymore, and the desktop has more fancy animation effects, but unfortunately there are still no shadows on window borders.  I'm not sure if still being in a VM (even with accelerated graphics) is causing it, or what guest addition packages I could install to possibly enable it.  I read online that Muffin/Metacity has shadows by default when compositing is enabled, but I don't know how to confirm if compositing is enabled, and if it's not, how to enable it in a VM.

In the near future I'll be installing Arch with this same setup on an actual partition and not just a VM so I guess I'll find out if Muffin does render the shadows when I do that.

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#6 2016-08-08 07:15:18

Rexhasta
Member
Registered: 2016-07-18
Posts: 4

Re: [SOLVED] Cinnamon/Muffin Window Shadows

Just posting an update in case anyone else ever has this problem and comes to this thread via search: I installed Arch with Cinnamon/Muffin natively on my HDD and all windows DO have shadows.  So it was just an issue with running in a VM (at least with VMware).  I guess Muffin automatically disables certain features for performance in a VM, even if you give the VM accelerated graphics access, or it's just a glitch.  Anyways, I marked the thread as solved.

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