CrazyTB's blog

I've installed Compiz Fusion version 0.7.8. I'm running a stable amd64 Gentoo/Linux, with Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and nvidia GeForce 9500M GS card. I'm using x11-base/xorg-x11-7.2, x11-drivers/nvidia-drivers-180.29, sys-kernel/vanilla-sources-2.6.28.7.

The old 15 annoyances/bugs
Previously, I've listed 15 things on Compiz Fusion 0.6.x that were annoying me, or that might be considered bugs. Thus, no better way to compare these versions than looking at which of them got fixed.

Annoyance/bug #1 Personal taste
Since this is more like a personal taste than a bug, it can't be "fixed". But I think that cube deformation to a cilynder or a sphere kinda solves the "jumpy" issue.

Annoyance/bug #2 Not fixed
A cube with Inside Cube option checked and an odd number of sides still draws the cube caps incorrectly.

Annoyance/bug #3 Fixed
The cube zooming-out behavior appears to be fixed, and seems to behave just like Beryl.

Annoyance/bug #4 Fixed
The default Viewport Switcher settings now work out of the box (you just need to enable the plugin).

Annoyance/bug #5 Half-fixed
The cube now wraps around when rotating. However, sometimes mouse-wheel on the desktop does not rotate the cube. Moving mouse around and trying again appears to be a workaround.

Annoyance/bug #6 Fixed
3D Windows plugin is now part of Compiz Fusion. However, I wasn't able yet to configure it the way I want.

Annoyance/bug #7 Not fixed
Animated cursors + Enhanced Zoom Desktop + Hide original mouse pointer is still buggy.

Annoyance/bug #8 Half-fixed
The Trailfocus plugin does not work with xterm windows, but that's easy to fix. Just add name=xterm or class=XTerm to that window-matching string.

Annoyance/bug #9 Fixed
The slider now has a sane range of values.

Annoyance/bug #10 Fixed
The window-matching string now has a simple to use editor! Great work, guys!

Annoyance/bug #11 Not fixed
I can't manually increase the opacity using mouse (like I could in Beryl), if the opacity had been decreased because of Trailfocus plugin. Then, I tried using the role=gimp-image-window rule to force setting 100% opacity (using Opacity, Brightness and Saturation plugin), but the Trailfocus still had precedence and I was left with semi-transparent Gimp windows.

What's more! It seems that compiz segfaults whenever I leave role=gimp-image-window in that plugin!

Annoyance/bug #12 "Can't fix"
This annoyance is about a badly-named plugin, that does the opposite of what the name says. The plugin hasn't been renamed, and I guess it won't be renamed.

Annoyance/bug #13 Fixed
This was the most annoying issue I previously had with Compiz Fusion. It is now fixed, and thus finally I can use detached menus like I used to do in Beryl. Thank you, guys!

Annoyance/bug #14 Fixed
Now ccsm accepts <Shift>.

Annoyance/bug #15 Half-fixed
The Color filters plugin doesn't list any unavailable filter, like it previously did out of the box. However, there are still some filters in /usr/share/compiz/filters/ that are not listed by default.

And the new annoyances/bugs
There a few extra issues I have with Compiz Fusion. They are not as bad as it was one year ago, so I'm probably keep using Compiz anyway.

Annoyance/bug #16 Compiz is slow...
Both Troubleshooting and FAQ tell me to pass --loose-binding parameter to compiz. When I do that, I can confirm that it becomes a lot faster. However...

Annoyance/bug #17 Graphics corruption / screen not updating
...however, I'm now noticing some graphics corruption. They look like screen is not updating correctly. It is being a pain to write this text, as sometimes parts of the textarea are not updated. I'm not very sure about what causes that, but I think it is this --loose-binding parameter, because these corruptions are gone if I start Compiz without this parameter. Update on 2009-05-04: posted a video on YouTube showing the graphical corruption.

Meanwhile, I'm going to disable 3D Windows plugin to improve speed while rotating the cube.

Annoyance/bug #18 Can't remove cube caps
Hey, this is so simple... but yet doesn't appear to be possible! I want to remove the cube caps, so that they are not drawn at all. But, somehow, I can't. The white-ish cube cap is always displayed. (white-ish because it is the Cube color in Desktop Cube plugin)

Update: There is one workaround... In Cube Reflection and Deformation, set empty strings as top and bottom images, check Draw top face and Draw bottom face, and edit the top/bottom color to have 0 opacity. No doubt, that's far from a clean way to remove the cube faces.

Annoyance/bug #19 Does not support wallpaper setting using old X programs
I used to set desktop background/wallpaper using fbsetbg, which calls wmsetbg. It used to work well in Beryl, and works in all window managers I know. However, in Compiz I'm forced to set wallpapers using the Wallpaper plugin, else the cube faces won't get transparent when the cube is rotated.

Annoyance/bug #20 Can't switch viewports/workspaces by using mouse-wheel at screen borders
This was a feature that I loved in Beryl. I could move the mouse to any screen edge and roll the mouse wheel to switch cube faces. It was fast and great. I couldn't find anything like this in Compiz Fusion. I'm going to miss this feature.

Update! Found a way to configure this! In Rotate Cube plugin, I can set the mouse shortcut for Rotate Left and Rotate Right as <BottomEdge>Button4 and <BottomEdge>Button5. So, this annoyance/bug is Fixed.

Annoyance/bug #21 3D Windows doesn't calculate distance in a per-cube-face basis
In Beryl, the 3D Windows plugin used only the windows from each cube face when calculating the distance between the window and the desktop. It looked great, and makes a lot of sense. In Compiz Fusion, however, this calculation appears to be global, which means that the three-dimensional windows on the same cube face will have irregular spacing, and some (most?) of them will be a lot farther than should.

Conclusions
I'm really impressed by the improvements. Compiz Fusion moved from being a pain to use (about one year ago) to a very usable window manager. Of course, this is my personal opinion.

I've just found that Compiz 0.8.0 has been released. I'm going to wait until it is added to portage before trying this new version.