Ubuntu – How to solve the horrible feud between Compiz’s wobbly windows and GNOME

compizgnomewindow-management

I've been a fan of Compiz's wobbly windows since I discovered them in 10.04. It's always been one of the first things I enabled. I still have it memorized: Appearance Preferences>Visual Effects>Extra. {I stole the below image from here}

An image I stole that shows the above Appearance Preferences window.

But I discovered GNOME 3.2 yesterday. And you can't take me away from it no matter how hard you try. Of course, I wanted my wonderful wobbly windows to work with GNOME… but that turned out to be really hard.

I tried the obvious compiz –replace, but to no avail. It simply kills GNOME and doesn't start anything, leaving my windows stranded, borderless, on the screen, with no way for me to logout or shutdown. I installed all {yes, all} Compiz settings manager-thingies. I changed settings once, twice, and four hundred times.

Of course, Unity tried to grab me by letting me use Compiz's wobbly windows freely and easily. Don't worry, GNOME, I won't leave you!

I've now spent countless hours trying to get the two best things in the universe, GNOME and wobbly windows, to work with each other, but nothing works.

I've done over 25 Bing searches, and I've installed countless bytes' worth of Compiz and GNOME settings managers, but to no avail.

How can I get my new best friend, GNOME 3.2, to work with my old best friend, Wobbly Windows? I'd even be willing to accept a non-Compiz wobbly windows solution, but I don't think anybody makes Wobbly Windows except Compiz.

Best Answer

Gnome shell uses mutter instead of compiz, and as such, does not use any compiz configurations or extensions. Currently (to my knowledge) there isn't any support in mutter for wobbly windows.

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get Compiz, Emerald, and GNOME to work

To use emerald on 11.04:

Remove Emerald:

$ sudo apt-get purge emerald

Deps:

$ sudo apt-get install libwnck-dev libwnck1.0-cil-dev git automake libtool intltool libdecoration0 libdecoration0-dev

Compile:

git clone git://anongit.compiz.org/fusion/decorators/emerald
cd emerald
git checkout -b compiz++ origin/compiz++
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && sudo make install

Now, open CompizConfig and enable "Window Decoration", "Resize Window" and "Move Window". Make sure "Window Decoration"'s command is emerald --replace .

Press alt+f2 to run this command:

emerald --replace

You should now have your emerald theme activated and have the ability to move the windows around. :D

11.10 Edits

You may have to modify the directions above slightly:

Compile:

git clone git://anongit.compiz.org/fusion/decorators/emerald
cd emerald
git checkout -b compiz++ origin/compiz++
git reset --hard 0936b42efbc4247d1af16d5043f9a7a36ed8063a
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && sudo make install

Note: The git reset command goes to a specific release of their code. It seems the latest version is broken, but this is subject to change. You may want to attempt the original instructions, and revert back to commit 0936b42efbc4247d1af16d5043f9a7a36ed8063a only if you are unable to compile Emerald.

Ubuntu – Compiz – ctrl alt shift doesn’t move windows anymore

As cube rotation with the window is still broken you can use a workaround. In the properties of the cube rotation plugin disable the shortcuts Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Left/Right. Activate Put plugin. Then in its properties, in "Put to adjacent viewport" section set your shortcuts for the Left and Right viewports.
Instead of moving to new viewport with the window simultaneously now the window will move to new viewport and then the viewport will promptly follow the window. Almost the same functionality.

BTW, activation of some plugins in my system (Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS, GNOME Classic session and Compiz 0.9.7.12-0ubuntu2) with ccsm crushed my Compiz and cleared all checkboxes of my active plugins. Put was among them. In order to activate this plugin in more safe way you can edit the file ~/.gconf/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/%gconf.xml and add into it some lines directly:

<li type="string">
    <stringvalue>put</stringvalue>
</li>

Then reboot your system.
P.S. If you are not using Gnome Classic try another locations to find your Compiz config file: https://askubuntu.com/a/223905

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – How to get Compiz, Emerald, and GNOME to work

Ubuntu – Compiz – ctrl alt shift doesn’t move windows anymore

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