! Please note that this is a snapshot of our old Bugzilla server, which is read only since May 29, 2020. Please go to gitlab.xfce.org for our new server !
Transparent background not working with WindowMaker on Arch Linux
Status:
RESOLVED: WONTFIX
Product:
Xfce4-terminal
Component:
General

Comments

Description hueypokerbrainz 2016-10-20 08:47:34 CEST
window manager: windowmaker-0.95.7
Linux version 4.8.2-1-ARCH

Terminal background cannot be set to Transparent.  Preferences box reports:
Sorry, your Window Manager does not support compositing:
Opacity setting is not available.


Worked fine on previous version (xfce4-terminal-0.6.3), doesn't work on current version (xfce4-terminal-0.8.0).
Comment 1 Igor editbugs 2016-10-20 11:59:19 CEST
Hi, thanks for the report.

Unfortunately, the thing is that in Gtk3 the only way to make background transparent is to modify its color alpha value; and this requires compositing WM.
I'm no expert in Window Manager - is there a way to add compositing feature to it?
Comment 2 poma 2016-10-20 21:10:55 CEST
For comparison,
while display compositing disabled in the Xfce 4 Window Manager,
applies to both variations - Xrender and GLX,
related transparency i.e. opacity feature is also disabled in the both Xfce Terminal emulator variations,
xfce4-terminal 0.6.3 GTK+ 2 and xfce4-terminal 0.8.0 GTK+ 3.
Comment 3 poma 2016-10-20 22:41:35 CEST
http://windowmaker.org/FAQ.php?chapter=7#106
5.11  How do I get a transparent xterm/rxvt/xconsole?
You need a terminal emulator that has support for transparency, like Eterm, the latest rxvt, wterm, aterm or gnome-terminal.

I checked on Fedora 24,

within:
$ wmaker --version
Window Maker 0.95.7

none of the following GTK+ 3 based Terminals provides transparency i.e. opacity
$ gnome-terminal --version
GNOME Terminal 3.20.2
$ mate-terminal --version
MATE Terminal 1.16.0
$ xfce4-terminal --version | head -1
xfce4-terminal 0.8.0git-20161018git980003b (Xfce 4.12)

There you go.
Comment 4 Egmont Koblinger 2016-10-20 23:28:04 CEST
I wonder when this FAQ was last updated.

It talks about eterm, wterm and aterm, projects with latest releases in 2011, 2013 and 2007 respectively, apparently none of them supporting UTF-8. It also talks about the Netscape 4.7 browser, x11amp, gcc 2.7 versus gcc 2.8 or egcs problems... feels like a true time travel to the past century (not exaggerating).

Yes there were times when vte's transparency worked with old-fashioned window managers, this is no longer the case. Nowadays it relies on the compositing feature of WMs.
Comment 5 Igor editbugs 2016-10-21 11:53:45 CEST
Unfortunately, there's nothing xfce4-terminal can do here.
Comment 6 hueypokerbrainz 2016-10-21 20:12:11 CEST
I appreciate everyone's help in looking at this.  I, like WindowMaker, am stuck in a previous decade.  There may be a workaround with the "compton" package:
https://github.com/chjj/compton
I'll look into it this weekend.
Comment 7 Igor editbugs 2016-10-21 20:27:34 CEST
(In reply to hueypokerbrainz from comment #6)
> I appreciate everyone's help in looking at this.  I, like WindowMaker, am
> stuck in a previous decade.  There may be a workaround with the "compton"
> package:
> https://github.com/chjj/compton
> I'll look into it this weekend.

Yes, I'm afraid turning on compositing feature is the only option to get transparency.
Thanks for understanding!
Comment 8 hueypokerbrainz 2016-10-21 22:39:10 CEST
by running:

$ compton --backend glx &

all my xfce4-terminals now have transparent backgrounds (again).  The visual effect is more of a true transparency than the old way (which will take some getting used to).

Thanks again for your help, and thanks for the wonderful terminal software.
Comment 9 Igor editbugs 2016-10-22 08:45:47 CEST
(In reply to hueypokerbrainz from comment #8)
> by running:
> 
> $ compton --backend glx &
> 
> all my xfce4-terminals now have transparent backgrounds (again).  The visual
> effect is more of a true transparency than the old way (which will take some
> getting used to).
> 
> Thanks again for your help, and thanks for the wonderful terminal software.

Thanks for the update and your good words!
Comment 10 Igor editbugs 2016-10-22 17:01:32 CEST
*** Bug 12915 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Bug #12906

Reported by:
hueypokerbrainz
Reported on: 2016-10-20
Last modified on: 2016-10-22
Duplicates (1):
  • 12915 Pseudo transparency doesn't work anymore

People

CC List:
4 users

Version

Attachments

Additional information