kwin/doc/kwineffects/index.docbook
Vlad Zahorodnii 811beb94e0 Remove Xrender backend
The Xrender backend was added at the time when OpenGL drivers were not
particularly stable. Nowadays though, it's a totally different situation.

The OpenGL render backend has been the default one for many years. It's
quite stable, and it allows implementing many advanced features that
other render backends don't.

Many features are not tested with it during the development cycle; the
only time when it is noticed is when changes in other parts of kwin break
the build in the xrender backend. Effectively, the xrender backend is
unmaintained nowadays.

Given that the xrender backend is effectively unmaintained and our focus
being shifted towards wayland, this change drops the xrender backend in
favor of the opengl backend.

Besides being de-facto unmaintained, another issue is that QtQuick does
not support and most likely will never support the Xrender API. This
poses a problem as we want thumbnail items to be natively integrated in
the qtquick scene graph.
2021-06-09 11:21:57 +03:00

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<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<!DOCTYPE article PUBLIC "-//KDE//DTD DocBook XML V4.5-Based Variant V1.1//EN"
"dtd/kdedbx45.dtd" [
<!ENTITY % addindex "IGNORE">
<!ENTITY % English "INCLUDE" > <!-- change language only here -->
]>
<article id="kwineffects" lang="&language;">
<articleinfo>
<title>Desktop Effects</title>
<authorgroup>
<author>&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;</author>
<!-- TRANS:ROLES_OF_TRANSLATORS -->
</authorgroup>
<date>2021-04-09</date>
<releaseinfo>Plasma 5.20</releaseinfo>
<keywordset>
<keyword>KDE</keyword>
<keyword>KControl</keyword>
<keyword>desktop</keyword>
<keyword>effects</keyword>
</keywordset>
</articleinfo>
<!--FIXME Compositor Enable compositor on startup necessary to have effects?-->
<para>This module is used to enable and configure desktop effects
for Plasma.</para>
<para>The main part of this page is a list of all available effects grouped
by <guilabel>Accessibility</guilabel>, <guilabel>Appearance</guilabel>,
<guilabel>Focus</guilabel>, <guilabel>Show Desktop Animation</guilabel>, <guilabel>Tools</guilabel>,
<guilabel>Virtual Desktop Switching Animation</guilabel>, <guilabel>Window Management</guilabel>,
and <guilabel>Window Open/Close Animation</guilabel>.</para>
<para>Use the incremental search bar above the list window to find items in the list.</para>
<para>Normally there is no reason for users to change that, but
there is a <inlinemediaobject><imageobject><imagedata fileref="configure-effects.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject></inlinemediaobject> configuration button to modify the filtering of the list to show
also those effects.
</para>
<para>The easiest way of installing new effects is by using the built-in
KNewStuff support in &kwin;. Press the <guibutton>Get New Desktop Effects</guibutton> button to open
a dialog with a list of available effects from the Internet and to install and uninstall effects.</para>
<note><para>Please keep in mind that changing these sensible defaults can break your system.</para>
</note>
<para>Check an effect in the list to enable it. Display information about Author and License by
clicking the <inlinemediaobject><imageobject><imagedata fileref="dialog-information.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject> </inlinemediaobject> info button at the right side of the list item.</para>
<para>Some effects have settings options, in this case there is a <inlinemediaobject><imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="configure-effects.png" format="PNG"/></imageobject></inlinemediaobject> configure button
at the left of the info button. Click it to open a configuration dialog.</para>
<para>To see a video preview of an effect click on the <inlinemediaobject><imageobject><imagedata fileref="video.png" format="PNG"/>
</imageobject></inlinemediaobject> button.</para>
<para>Some effects are mutual exclusive to other effects. For example one would only want to activate the
<guilabel>Maximize</guilabel> or the <guilabel>Magic Lamp</guilabel> effect. Both activated at the same
time result in broken animations.
</para>
<para>For effects in a mutual exclusive group the &GUI; uses radio buttons and manages that only one of these
effects can be activated.
</para>
<para>All effects which are not supported by the currently used compositing backend
are hidden by default (&eg; OpenGL effects when using software renderer).
</para>
<para>Also all internal or helper effects are hidden by default. These are effects which replace
functionality from KWin Core or provide interaction with other elements of the desktop shell.
</para>
<!--FIXME
39 effects + 7 internal (XRender compositor)
Internal effects
Appearance (Dashboard, Highlight Windows, KSreen, Screenshot, Window Geometry)
Window Management (Cover Switch)
-->
</article>