Xfce Forum

Jarkandu

Member

Registered: 2007-05-12

Posts: 1

How do I make my panel transparent?

What do I do to make my panel transparent? I'm running a Debian based distro called 64 studio, and I can't find an option to make my panel transparent.

Jim Adams

DebUser

Member

Registered: 2007-05-04

Posts: 3

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Hi,

First, you must activate transparency in xorg.conf:
Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Then, in settings manager, choose window manager tweaks and click on tab called compositor. Check enable display compositing.

Then, in settings manager, choose panel and uncheck "make active panel opaque "

Bye

shak

Member

Registered: 2007-07-15

Posts: 1

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

hi  i am new to this and can't figure this out. i have done what you said to do(edit xorg.conf and i still dont see the option where it should be. i had this working before but then when i logged in again everything stopped working. My transparent windows went away and the option disappeared.

flebber

Member

Registered: 2007-07-16

Posts: 12

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Hi,

First, you must activate transparency in xorg.conf:
Section "Extensions"
    Option "Composite" "Enable"
EndSection

Then, in settings manager, choose window manager tweaks and click on tab called compositor. Check enable display compositing.

Then, in settings manager, choose panel and uncheck "make active panel opaque "

Bye

My question isn't how do you make the panel transparent, but how do you make the icons or active windows (panel 2) opaque whilst the bar is transparent. When I mkae the bar transparent so the icons to become transparent.

janux

Member

Registered: 2007-07-30

Posts: 4

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Hi, I'm using beryl and beryl can do that and works nice

flebber

Member

Registered: 2007-07-16

Posts: 12

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Can you do it without Beryl, I don't really want all the other effects.

undrwater

Member

Registered: 2007-12-12

Posts: 3

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

I agree.  Transparency works well without beryl or compiz, but the icons and other such items on the panel also become transparent when that is selected.

I have a feeling that the answer includes addition or change of the code for the panel itself.  Maybe there's  a bug filed already?

Anaximander Thales

Member

Registered: 2008-01-20

Posts: 3

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Well, not sure if you've found anything yet.

I encountered someone's blog that 'sort of' did what you are wanting to do.

If you don't mind using a background image for your panel, here is the link:
howto set a background image for your panel

This is quite a bit older -- oct. 2006 -- but, this guy apparently created a patch -- not to much in the blog, and the link looks like it just downloads the patch.  Didn't try to download it -- so it may not even be available.
http://blog.xfce.org/?p=177

kevanf1

Member

Registered: 2008-05-04

Posts: 3

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Sorry but I have to ask.  Are these solutions available on the Xfce desktop?  If so I may try them myself.  I'm feeling pretty confident after getting my scren resolution sorted in xorg.conf.  Before I couldn't get above 60hz refresh that was migraine inducing so I just went in and tweaked it a little.  I will say that the xorg.conf file is a lot nicer in Xubuntu than in it's big brothers Ubuntu and Kubuntu.  Again, could this be something to do with Xubuntu using Xfce?

crimesaucer

Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 103

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

You can download the patch that was talked about above with this link (from the last version of comment #14): http://www.loculus.nl/xfce/files/panel- … 0125.patch

Then just build the xfce4-panel package with that patch and use either xfce4 compositing or compiz for it to work (try the blur plugin for compiz to make it look better).

This is my xfce4 on Arch (I changed the RGBA of the patch to match my desktop) :

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … hot-73.png

This is how it looks with the regular patch with out any editing:

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-22-1.jpg

Also, this is what it looks like without the blur effect:

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-43-1.jpg

same with the blur effect:

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-46-1.jpg

Does anybody know if there is a patch for the 4.6 version of xfce4-panel?

banshee28

Member

Registered: 2009-03-04

Posts: 6

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Any update on getting transparency working on 4.6? Also I was able to use a background image for the panel but it seems like it divides the panel up into 3 parts and inserts the image at the begging of the task bar, then at the main task bar in the middle then the at the far right by the clock! Is there a way to have the background image span the entire width of the panel? This way I can simulate transparency a bit.

crimesaucer

Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 103

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Any update on getting transparency working on 4.6?

I am also hoping someone makes a new cairo-patch for 4.6...... has anyone done this yet?

Also I was able to use a background image for the panel but it seems like it divides the panel up into 3 parts and inserts the image at the begging of the task bar, then at the main task bar in the middle then the at the far right by the clock! Is there a way to have the background image span the entire width of the panel? This way I can simulate transparency a bit.

What I do is I make my image only 1 pixel wide and the exact height of my panel (like 24 pixels or 48 pixels). I am using a panel image for my xfce4-panel 4.6 and it works perfectly. And if you are using a transparent image then you will want to use the correct color for your background (bg [NORMAL]).

banshee28

Member

Registered: 2009-03-04

Posts: 6

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

I am not using a "transparent" image. I am just using a normal wallpaper I downloaded and cut the bottom portion out the size of the panel so it would be similar to being transparent. Also how am I going to use a 1 pixel image?

crimesaucer

Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 103

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

I am not using a "transparent" image. I am just using a normal wallpaper I downloaded and cut the bottom portion out the size of the panel so it would be similar to being transparent. Also how am I going to use a 1 pixel image?

I see what you are saying.... I have tried to use full size panel images before and they always would start over for each button and icon button.... and also in the sections that you mentioned. Even a 24 pixel wide image would repeat/start over and look bad..... so that is why I only use a 1 pixel wide image for and panel background because it keeps a continuous flow for everything.

So one way to get a transparent panel (other than with that old cairo-patch) is to use a .gtkrc-2.0 file and a transparent glossy image in your /home/directory:

Then make the xfce4-panel about 10% to 20% transparent..... the only problem is that the icons, buttons, and text will also be 10% to 20% transparent..... which is why the cairo-patch was nice.

Check out this very old picture of when I would do my xfce4-panel with a Vista look (and also my Emerald theme):

http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-25-1.jpg

This is the image used for the panel:

Here are some other old examples of using a glossy transparent image that is 1 pixel wide:
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161 … -116-1.png
http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r161 … t-85-5.png

s0ulslack

Member

From: Idaho

Registered: 2005-12-25

Posts: 291

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Here's a shot with a plain 4.6 panel

http://sometimes.strangled.net/screens/waves.png

Customize Panel-> Transparency

pierrearinsal

Member

Registered: 2009-04-21

Posts: 2

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

I also wish xfce4.6 would have a patch to make the panel background transparent... :-(

jarryson

Member

Registered: 2007-10-24

Posts: 3

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

i also want the panel background to be real transparent, and the font won't.

nyx

Member

Registered: 2009-05-17

Posts: 4

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

How do I apply a patch? (sry, im a noob in this field)

I like almost every other aspect to xfce though. Runs excellently on my laptop!

crimesaucer

Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 103

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

How do I apply a patch? (sry, im a noob in this field)

I like almost every other aspect to xfce though. Runs excellently on my laptop!

I am far from an expert but I'll try to explain what I have learned over the last few years.

You download the patch (like the cairo-patch), and you download the tar.gz of the source code for the app that you want to build and patch (like xfce4-panel). Then you place the patch in the folder that you unpacked from the xfce4-panel.tar.gz and run a command in that folder using the terminal:

patch -Np0 -i cairo-patch.patch

It should print out a message if it Succeeded in patching or if it Failed (and if it fails it will create an error file that explains what went wrong).... Usually it will succeed and then you just "./configure and make" the new xfce4-panel package as usual.

There are different ways to use the patch command, so read the manual pages about the patch command's options:

man patch

..... I use a PKGBUILD (an automated script) to build all of my apps..... so I add a line in the PKGBUILD script to patch the source code, it looks similar to this outdated Archlinux AUR PKGBUILD for the cairo patch: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=22081

pkgname=xfce4-panel-cairo
pkgver=4.4.3
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Panel for the Xfce desktop environment with cairo transparency patch"
arch=(i686 x86_64)
license=('GPL2')
url="http://www.xfce.org/"
groups=('xfce4')
depends=('libxfcegui4>=4.4.3' 'libxfce4mcs>=4.4.3' 'hicolor-icon-theme')
makedepends=('pkgconfig' 'xfce-mcs-manager')
options=('!libtool')
replaces=('xfce4-iconbox' 'xfce4-showdesktop-plugin' 'xfce4-systray' \
          'xfce4-windowlist-plugin' 'xfce4-taskbar-plugin')
install=${pkgname}.install
source=(http://www.xfce.org/archive/xfce-${pkgver}/src/${pkgname}-${pkgver}.tar.bz2 http://packmanutil.googlecode.com/svn-history/r3543/trunk/pmubuilds/xfce-base/xfce4-panel/files/xfce4-panel-invisibility-1.patch)
md5sums=('06ef9294062f9bdee4106772e62802f5'
         '871dc34e6dd90d9bc91ebae1c6afbcca')
     
build() {
  cp xfce4-panel-invisibility-1.patch ${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}/xfce4-panel-invisibility-1.patch
  cd ${srcdir}/${pkgname}-${pkgver}
  patch -Np0 -i xfce4-panel-invisibility-1.patch || return 1
  ./configure --prefix=/usr --sysconfdir=/etc --libexecdir=/usr/lib/xfce4 \
    --localstatedir=/var --disable-static
  make || return 1
  make DESTDIR=${pkgdir} install
}

crimesaucer

Member

Registered: 2007-05-21

Posts: 103

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

I was finally able to patch the 4.6 panel..... well at least 4 of the file 5 files. I did it by hand and just adjusted each place where I added the patches (the line numbers are different and some of the parts are written differently)..... but it was basically still the same as the old 4.4.3 xfce4-panel so it did work.

The only file I was unable to patch was the xfce-panel-external-item.c file.

This is my xfce4.6 with cairo-patched panel:

1440x900 view: http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-40-4.jpg

Another look at the RGBA transparent panel on my latest desktop theme:

1440x900 view: http://i480.photobucket.com/albums/rr16 … t-41-7.png

Wapush

Member

Registered: 2006-12-14

Posts: 140

Re: How do I make my panel transparent?

Hi

Here is a patch (including "xfce-panel-external-item.c") that should work with xfce-panel 4.6.1:
xfce4-panel-4.6.1_cairo-patch.tar.gz

I forgot to say that the patch also changes the arrow size of the launcher from 16 to 12 (the old 4.4.x size).

Warning: And you should know that this patch, as the old cairo patch for xfce4-panel 4.4.x, breaks the systray, the weather plugin and possibly other plugins.

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