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#1 2010-06-18 19:17:02

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Or desktops or viewports (we can't seem to agree on a term).

I recently switched from gnome+compiz to kde+compiz. It seems to work fine for everything outside of multiple workspaces. It acts really screwy and inconsistent. I have my plasma pager applet down on my bottom panel. For a while there any time I adjusted the number of workspaces with the pager settings (my goal is to have 4 horizontal workspaces), plasma would crash. Now I got KDE to show 4 on the pager, and CCSM is set to 4 horizontal workspaces, but it still doesn't act right at all. Like, every time I click on the pager to switch workspaces it seems to minimize all my windows or something, so I can't see the little previews on my pager to see what window is where, and if I pull up the compiz cube only windows for my currently active workspaces show on the cube (other cube sides are just empty desktops). I might be describing the malfunction wrong since it seems to be inconsistent in behaviour. Sometimes it seems like it's causing each KDE desktop to have 4 workspaces of it's own or some convoluted thing (somehow I don't think compiz is able to draw a shape that accurately represents that haha). If I had a window on workspace 1 and another on workspace 4 then switch to workspace 4, if I use the compiz cube to go back and look at what should be workspace 1 it doesn't show workspace 1 as highlighed and my window is nowhere to be found until I click workspace 1 on the pager, at which point the cube spins in a frenzy and appears back at my correct workspace (although the window is now minimized to the taskbar). 

I'm really impressed with KDE 4.4.4 so far, but this is driving me insane for obvious reasons. The whole multi-workspace thing is so ingrained in my head that I can't function without it. I've Googled this problem and found lots of people having similar troubles, but no solutions.

Help please?

Last edited by DWilliams (2010-06-18 19:17:30)

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#2 2010-06-20 17:52:47

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Bump

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#3 2010-06-21 14:40:47

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

I really don't want to use KWin. From what I've seen the KWin effects aren't nearly as smooth as compiz (wobbly windows in KWin especially seem clunky)

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#4 2010-06-23 15:46:29

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Using KWin for now...

It's better than it was when I last used it a few versions ago but I still want my compiz back...

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#5 2010-06-25 13:08:09

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Bump

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#6 2010-06-25 16:38:52

Xenokyn
Member
Registered: 2010-05-27
Posts: 6

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

I can't get the emerald themes from compiz to work at all right now with kde. I used the tray icon to disable KWin, and enable compiz+emerald, but after i do this my windows have no title bars, borders, or close/maximise/minimise boxes. I can still use the desktop cube, the water efffects, etc - but the basic compiz/emerald window functionality isn't there. I've posted and i get no replies, so i'm hoping if i post to your thread it might help both of us get our problems solved quicker.

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#7 2010-06-25 17:32:14

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Xenokyn wrote:

I can't get the emerald themes from compiz to work at all right now with kde. I used the tray icon to disable KWin, and enable compiz+emerald, but after i do this my windows have no title bars, borders, or close/maximise/minimise boxes. I can still use the desktop cube, the water efffects, etc - but the basic compiz/emerald window functionality isn't there. I've posted and i get no replies, so i'm hoping if i post to your thread it might help both of us get our problems solved quicker.

You need to go in CCSM and check the appropriate boxes under "Window Management"

Last edited by DWilliams (2010-06-25 17:32:24)

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#8 2010-06-26 17:22:17

Xenokyn
Member
Registered: 2010-05-27
Posts: 6

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

compizoptions.png

You need to go in CCSM and check the appropriate boxes under "Window Management"

That was the first thing I did after installing compiz - here is the screenshot of what i have checked. You can also see that even with these options checked the windows still have no borders or title bars. I've played around with these options a lot, I would not post on a forum asking for help if I hadn't done a lot of experimentation and reading to try and troubleshoot the problem on my own. Given what you can see here, any ideas on what could I be doing wrong?

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#9 2010-06-28 17:19:34

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

No idea what your problem could be, then. That was my first guess

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#10 2010-06-28 20:20:35

bananaoomarang
Member
Registered: 2009-10-29
Posts: 180

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

best advice is to wait till 9.0 compiz release then wiait for some feuture full releases ( development should be a whole lot faster  after 9.0). They should stat making it more kde4 compatible, they have to because of gnome shell. kde4 is the only option. So wait because at the moment there is no solution. If kde effects are clunky, try posting your GPU model, then I might b able to help with that.

EDIT: Xenokyn, try running emerald --replace in konsole and check if you have emerald set to a theme. That should fix the border problem.

Last edited by bananaoomarang (2010-06-28 20:22:57)

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#11 2010-06-28 20:29:10

karoshi
Member
From: Marburg
Registered: 2008-02-26
Posts: 182

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Dont know much about Compiz, but did you check "systemsettings > default applications > window manager"?


It's a bug planet!

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#12 2010-06-29 15:44:10

Xenokyn
Member
Registered: 2010-05-27
Posts: 6

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

did you check "systemsettings > default applications > window manager"?

Selecting the raido button in that kde menu to "Compiz Custom" then pressing "apply" gives me this error:
snapshot4m.png
Typing emerald --replace in konsole just causes the program to hang like this:
snapshot2k.png
Running it in the command prompt without X started displays this error:
(emerald:3577): Gtk-Warning **: Cannot Open Display:
The Emerald Theme Manager doesn't have an "apply" type button, but it seems to remember the theme I set.
Whats really confusing me about compiz/emerald is they worked fine on a previous Arch install, with an earlier version of KDE4(and probably compiz), and all I used to get it working was the options in the Compiz Fusion Icon program that gets installed with the compiz package. bananaoomarang, you mentioned waiting till compiz 9.0 for better kde4 compatiblity, did something happen that could have broken compatibilty? I don't remember having to use the "systemsettings > default applications > window manager" setting in KDE before either. In case it helps, heres my GPU info:
snapshot3f.png

Last edited by Xenokyn (2010-06-29 15:45:40)

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#13 2010-06-29 16:55:23

bananaoomarang
Member
Registered: 2009-10-29
Posts: 180

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Xenokyn, from that picture it looks like you are running kwin and then doing emerald --replace. That won't work you need to have no borders and be running compiz then run emerald replace. open up 2 tabs in konsole the do compix --replace in one then emerald replace in the other.

The (emerald:3577): Gtk-Warning **: Cannot Open Display: error is just because there is no X server open for emerald to use. Perfectly normal as X needs to be running for you to run a WM.

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#14 2010-06-29 17:50:03

ewaller
Administrator
From: Pasadena, CA
Registered: 2009-07-13
Posts: 19,740

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

DWilliams wrote:

Or desktops or viewports (we can't seem to agree on a term).

I recently switched from gnome+compiz to kde+compiz. It seems to work fine for everything outside of multiple workspaces. It acts really screwy and inconsistent. I have my plasma pager applet down on my bottom panel. For a while there any time I adjusted the number of workspaces with the pager settings (my goal is to have 4 horizontal workspaces), plasma would crash. Now I got KDE to show 4 on the pager, and CCSM is set to 4 horizontal workspaces, but it still doesn't act right at all. Like, every time I click on the pager to switch workspaces it seems to minimize all my windows or something, so I can't see the little previews on my pager to see what window is where, and if I pull up the compiz cube only windows for my currently active workspaces show on the cube (other cube sides are just empty desktops). I might be describing the malfunction wrong since it seems to be inconsistent in behaviour. Sometimes it seems like it's causing each KDE desktop to have 4 workspaces of it's own or some convoluted thing (somehow I don't think compiz is able to draw a shape that accurately represents that haha). If I had a window on workspace 1 and another on workspace 4 then switch to workspace 4, if I use the compiz cube to go back and look at what should be workspace 1 it doesn't show workspace 1 as highlighed and my window is nowhere to be found until I click workspace 1 on the pager, at which point the cube spins in a frenzy and appears back at my correct workspace (although the window is now minimized to the taskbar). 

I'm really impressed with KDE 4.4.4 so far, but this is driving me insane for obvious reasons. The whole multi-workspace thing is so ingrained in my head that I can't function without it. I've Googled this problem and found lots of people having similar troubles, but no solutions.

Help please?

Getting back to the OP, I had the same problems with Compiz.  My take was that you had 4 workspaces in KDE (the 4 sides of the infamous "cube") -- On top of that, Compiz was providing 4 desktops per cube face.  It was like having 4 cubes run by KDE that moved together, but Compiz would select which Cube at which you were looking.  i.e. KDE picked which "Face" to look at, and compiz picked which "Cube" to look at.  Unless I missed the mark, I actually had 16 independent desktops.  I never did figure out how to tame this and just went with kwin.


Nothing is too wonderful to be true, if it be consistent with the laws of nature -- Michael Faraday
Sometimes it is the people no one can imagine anything of who do the things no one can imagine. -- Alan Turing
---
How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

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#15 2010-06-29 19:12:59

bananaoomarang
Member
Registered: 2009-10-29
Posts: 180

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

ahhhhhh that actualy makes sense now. Well I guess we just need to wait for compiz++ to sort this out.

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#16 2010-11-26 22:07:27

DWilliams
Member
From: Everywhere
Registered: 2009-11-22
Posts: 119

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

Bumping this. Has a solution developed in the months since I've posted this?

I was messing around with my system settings today and thought "oh hey, why am I using kwin? I like emerald+compiz better", then remembered the problem as soon as I switched back.

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#17 2010-11-26 23:19:55

Lothium
Member
Registered: 2009-10-10
Posts: 192

Re: KDE and Compiz - Problems with multiple workspaces

I'm not sure if I understand you right. You want 4 virtuell desktops and the pager in KDE should work. For me, I use 3 virtuell desktops and my settings in ccsm (generell settings) look like this:

Virtuelle horizontale Größe: 3
Virtuelle vertikale Größe: 1
Anzahl Desktops: 1

This works for me. I'm not sure if this will help you, but first I also had the problem with the different screens. This solved it for me. I have the problem, that the kde decorator always crashes when I logout from kde. I have no solution for this.

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