gnome-system-monitor window is semi-transparent when using compiz

looks like compiz or a video driver issue. re assigning it to compiz for now. thanks in advance.

Which video card do you have and which driver are you using?

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
 Subsystem: Dell Device 0182
 Control: I/O+ Mem+ BusMaster+ SpecCycle- MemWINV- VGASnoop- ParErr- Stepping- SERR- FastB2B- DisINTx-
 Status: Cap+ 66MHz- UDF- FastB2B+ ParErr- DEVSEL=fast >TAbort- <TAbort- <MAbort- >SERR- <PERR- INTx-
 Latency: 0
 Interrupt: pin A routed to IRQ 16
 Region 0: Memory at dff00000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
 Region 1: I/O ports at ec38 [size=8]
 Region 2: Memory at c0000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
 Region 3: Memory at dfec0000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
 Capabilities: <access denied>
 Kernel modules: intelfb

ii xserver-xorg-video-intel 2:2.4.1-1ubuntu6 X.Org X server -- Intel i8xx, i9xx display driver
ii compiz 1:0.7.7+git20080807-0ubuntu10 OpenGL window and compositing manager

I don't think this is a compiz issue or a video driver issue, it's the theme or application explicitly choosing to be transparent by using RGBA colours.
Adding gnome-system-monitor back, because my guess is that it lies there since nothing else is doing this.

Happens when using the intel video driver on Intrepid Alpha 6 and problem disappears when compiz is disabled.

Even setting opacity to 100% for System Monitor in the "opacify, brightness, and saturation" options in Compiz Settings Manager doesn't stop it being slightly transparent.

indeed, it seems that it's a design desicion rather than a bug http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=515907 added RGBA to system monitor so it can use the transparency capabilities of the Murrine GTK+ theme and yep it's only showed with a composite manager in this case compiz, you can probably also see it with metacity with the composite manager enabled, not a bug but a design desicion.

It looks like I'm not using the intel driver, but i810.

I'm going to deinstall i810 and try the intel driver.

Only happens with Human and NewHuman themes.

Seems odd for one application to decide to be transparent when others aren't and no way to change it.

Pedro: The design decision is a pretty strange one though, it breaks consistency with the rest of the desktop. I think we should consider reverting it. The patch involved is tiny (and attached).

Upstream says this is a theme bug for enabling transparency when an RGBA palette is set, but since g-s-m is the only obvious application doing this, it might be safer to carry a patch there.
Perhaps this is all too late for Intrepid anyway, but I would like to think not. Also, perhaps my approach is completely insane and this will really annoy users of some themes, I'm not sure, but I suspect not.

I spoke to kwwii and he agrees this is a theme thing and will be fixed there, so my patch is officially bogus.

Will this bug be fixed until the final Release?

Is it not possible to disable the RGBA feature.

Gnome-terminal is also affected by the same problem.

Regards
Achim

This is a feature, not a bug. Marking as invalid

No, it's a bug. May be not a gnome-system-monitor bug, but it's a bug.

Simply marking this one as invalid doesn't solve the issue.

Everything here is functioning as intended. Can you please elaborate on
what you see as the bug here? What is the problem, how does it affect
you, what is the expected behaviour?

Chris: The reason this is being claimed as a bug is because gnome-system-monitor is the only app in the desktop which is making its background transparent (I'll disregard GNOME Terminal because terminals are strange hairy beasties that many users won't care about).

gnome-system-monitor looks out of place in the context of the rest of the desktop, so people assume something is wrong.

It's not a bug because upstream intended to do this. It's not a feature because it doesn't really add anything other than confusion.

In an ideal world I think we would change the app to look like all the others, but right now it falls inbetween the cracks of "bug" and "feature".

IT IS NOT A BUG. COMPIZ DOES THIS ON PURPOSE.

-----Original Message-----
From: Emmanuel Pacaud <email address hidden>
Sent: October 24, 2008 4:14 AM
To: <email address hidden>
Subject: [Bug 274461] Re: gnome-system-monitor window is semi-transparent when using compiz

No, it's a bug. May be not a gnome-system-monitor bug, but it's a bug.

Simply marking this one as invalid doesn't solve the issue.

** Changed in: human-theme (Ubuntu)
       Status: Invalid => New

** Changed in: gnome-system-monitor (Ubuntu)
       Status: Invalid => New

--
gnome-system-monitor window is semi-transparent when using compiz
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/274461
You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu
Artwork Team, which is subscribed to human-theme in ubuntu.

Ahem, stay calm, please...

As a user, I don't know where is exactly the issue. During the life of this bug, the affected package list growned from compiz, to compiz + gnome-system-monitor + human-theme. May be compiz does the right thing, may be not, I don't know.

But the issue is still there: the gnome-system-monitor window is semi-transparent, when all other application windows are not. It's simply not consistent, and makes the text harder to read.

In the latest package (5 min old) I have turned the transparency off.

This bug was fixed in the package human-theme - 0.28.5

---------------
human-theme (0.28.5) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Removing panel_bg to fix LP: #284975 and LP: #287639, setting rgba to
    false to fix LP: #274461, setting GTKMenu padding in DarkRoom to fix an
    unreported bug in the fusa applet icon placement.

 -- Kenneth Wimer <email address hidden> Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:25:27 +0200

gksudo is also transparent.

In my opinion the bug should be filed to the other apps which do not support transparency!
In this way you turned off the transparency support in the whole theme engine... So emesene, awn-manager and others won't have transparency anymore...

here's the list of apps supporting RGBA
http://www.cimitan.com/murrine/rgba-support/list

Anyway I also think that by default all apps should support transparency, but there should be a way to completely enable or disable RGBA on all apps in the apparence gnome app.
In the mean time how can I re-enable transparency in the ubuntu theme? thanks

To be honest, gnome-terminal supports rgba too (well, the only non-console widget in gnome-terminal, i.e. the menubar)

For more info about reasons, status, and future or RGBA in gtk+ and Murrine, see also

  http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2007/12/12/gtk-rgba-transparent-widgets-with-the-murrine-engine/
  http://www.cimitan.com/blog/2008/02/17/rgba-colormap-by-default-in-gtk-call-for-a-coder/

About Ubuntu, the Artwork Team have to choose: enable RGBA in Human theme or not. If enabled, only applications supporting this feature will be semi-transient.

It's not a bug, it's not a feature. It's a cabapility of GTK+ libraries that applications and theme engines can use. Most probably GTK+ 3 will normalize the usage of this feature for all GNOME apps.

> In the mean time how can I re-enable transparency in the ubuntu theme? thanks

Open /usr/share/themes/Human/gtk-2.0/gtkrc , find "rgba" option and change its value from FALSE to TRUE.

Same for all other Murrine based themes.

Thank you very much Luca!

Is there something similar to a gconf key to enable/disable it? So
that the apparence applet can be modified to handle it?

Whats the option to set the opacity value?

PLease read the dupe: bug 265063.
It already has attached a diff to fix murrine!

It is stupid to have the apps set opacity, that is Compiz' job. If you put the settings in the apps the user has to control them per-app. If you let the compositing manager handle opacity then all the settings are in one place.

It's not a feature, it's an intentional bug, and it's done the WRONG way. I would go so far as to say it's done the anti-Unix way, which is to have small tools that work well and don't have too many features. This is definitely a feature that doesn't belong in the tool since the typical desktop already has a mechanism for managing this.

BUG.