Compiz and Emerald
Overview
Compiz Fusion is a compositing manager that allows you to easily add a wide variety of fancy effects and animations to your desktop environment. Some of the more well known - and popular - examples include:
- Turning the desktop into a 3D cube, cylinder, or sphere to switch between workspaces / virtual desktops
- Wobbly and stretchy windows
- Zooming in on the desktop
Emerald is a window decorator that allows for a wide variety new looks to be added to appplication windows. It also allows for decorations to be edited or even created from scratch. For now, there are plenty of existing Emerald themes that can be downloaded and used first.
Using Compiz Fusion and Emerald together can produce some genuinely stunning-looking desktop environments. However, even if you choose to download and install them together, you can still very easily choose to use just one or the other with your desktop environment at any time. For more information about Compiz Fusion and Emerald, the Compiz wiki can be found here.
Install Compiz Fusion and Emerald
Although it is possible to download and install them via the Add/Remove Software application provided with Manjaro, it is actually faster and easier to use the terminal, which will be used in this tutorial.
As illustrated, entering the command to install both Compiz Fusion and Emerald together for XFCE has resulted in pacman automatically pulling a few extra packages as dependencies of the ones specified (i.e. seven packages have been listed, but eleven are being downloaded in this instance).
Once installed, it will not be necessary to reboot your machine; you can start setting them up straight away!
Installation for XFCE
- To install only Compiz Fusion:
sudo pacman -S ccsm compiz-core fusion-icon compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig compiz-manager
- To install only Emerald:
sudo pacman -S emerald-themes
- To install both Compiz Fusion and Emerald together:
sudo pacman -S ccsm compiz-core fusion-icon emerald-themes compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig compiz-manager
Installation for KDE
- To install only Compiz Fusion:
sudo pacman -S ccsm compiz-core fusion-icon compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig compiz-manager compiz-decorator-kde
- To install only Emerald:
sudo pacman -S emerald-themes
- To install both Compiz Fusion and Emerald together:
sudo pacman -S ccsm compiz-core fusion-icon emerald-themes compiz-fusion-plugins-extra libcompizconfig compiz-manager compiz-decorator-kde
Set up Compiz Fusion and Emerald
Compiz Fusion
This guide will provide you with the very basics to get up and running with Compiz Fusion. This includes setting it up as your default windows manager so that it will automatically activate upon starting your desktop, rather than having to manually start it each time.
The Compiz Configuration Settings Manager (ccsm)
This is where you can activate and tweak any and all of the special effects and animations you want. Although they are quite easy and straightforward to set up, there are a wide variety of options available, and an even wider variety of tweaks that can be done to them.
As illustrated, the Compiz Configuration Settings Manager itself can be found in the Settings section of your desktop menu. Alternatively, entering ccsm in XFCE's Application Finder or KDE's built-in search bar will also bring it up.
A note about 3D Cubes, Cylinders, and Spheres
File:Workspaces.png There are two very important things to know if you want to access this feature:
1. Make sure you have enough workspaces / virtual desktops to form the 3D shape(s) you want. For the cube and sphere, you should have at least four workspaces - try them with less and see what happens! For the cylinder, you should have at least three workspaces.
2. The number of workspaces set in the Compiz Configuration Manager MUST match the number of workspaces set in your XFCE or KDE desktop. For example, as illustrated, if you set three workspaces in Compiz, you must also set three workspaces in your desktop environment, and vice-versa. If there is a mismatch, you may find that application windows
The workspace settings can be found in the Settings section of your desktop menu. Alternatively, entering workspace in XFCE's Application Finder or KDE's built-in search bar will also bring it up.