Ubuntu MATE 16.10: Panel Shadow Missing

Hi guys I have a question: How can I enable the panels shadow with the compositor on?

I see is missing in the GTK3 version but in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 the shadows appear.

Are you using Compton or Compiz?

I have tried both and no panel shadow showing

Okay, here is what I do to get both shadows and a bit of transparencies in the menus.

  1. Go to Mate Tweak and set the window manager to Marco with no compositing of any kind.

  2. Paste the following into a blank Pluma file

sleep 10
compton

Save it as “start-compton.sh” in your home folder

Open Caja and right click the file you just made and choose “properties” then the “permissions” tab.

Check the “allow executing file as program” checkbox

Then close the properties dialog box

Now open System/Preferences/Personal/Startup Applications and add the bash script you just saved in your home folder.

  1. Now copy and paste the following into a new blank Pluma file

    #################################

    Backend

    #################################

    Backend to use: “xrender” or “glx”.

    GLX backend is typically much faster but depends on a sane driver.

    backend = “glx”;

    #################################

    GLX backend

    #################################

    glx-no-stencil = true;

    GLX backend: Copy unmodified regions from front buffer instead of redrawing them all.

    My tests with nvidia-drivers show a 10% decrease in performance when the whole screen is modified,

    but a 20% increase when only 1/4 is.

    My tests on nouveau show terrible slowdown.

    Useful with --glx-swap-method, as well.

    glx-copy-from-front = false;

    GLX backend: Use MESA_copy_sub_buffer to do partial screen update.

    My tests on nouveau shows a 200% performance boost when only 1/4 of the screen is updated.

    May break VSync and is not available on some drivers.

    Overrides --glx-copy-from-front.

    glx-use-copysubbuffermesa = true;

    GLX backend: Avoid rebinding pixmap on window damage.

    Probably could improve performance on rapid window content changes, but is known to break things on some drivers (LLVMpipe).

    Recommended if it works.

    glx-no-rebind-pixmap = true;

    GLX backend: GLX buffer swap method we assume.

    Could be undefined (0), copy (1), exchange (2), 3-6, or buffer-age (-1).

    undefined is the slowest and the safest, and the default value.

    copy is fastest, but may fail on some drivers,

    2-6 are gradually slower but safer (6 is still faster than 0).

    Usually, double buffer means 2, triple buffer means 3.

    buffer-age means auto-detect using GLX_EXT_buffer_age, supported by some drivers.

    Useless with --glx-use-copysubbuffermesa.

    Partially breaks --resize-damage.

    Defaults to undefined.

    glx-swap-method = “undefined”;

    #################################

    Shadows

    #################################

    Enabled client-side shadows on windows.

    shadow = true;

    Don’t draw shadows on DND windows.

    no-dnd-shadow = true;

    Avoid drawing shadows on dock/panel windows.

    #no-dock-shadow = true;

    Zero the part of the shadow’s mask behind the window. Fix some weirdness with ARGB windows.

    clear-shadow = true;

    The blur radius for shadows. (default 12)

    shadow-radius = 5;

    The left offset for shadows. (default -15)

    shadow-offset-x = -5;

    The top offset for shadows. (default -15)

    shadow-offset-y = -5;

    The translucency for shadows. (default .75)

    shadow-opacity = 0.5;

    Set if you want different colour shadows

    shadow-red = 0.0;

    shadow-green = 0.0;

    shadow-blue = 0.0;

    The shadow exclude options are helpful if you have shadows enabled. Due to the way compton draws its shadows, certain applications will have visual glitches

    (most applications are fine, only apps that do weird things with xshapes or argb are affected).

    This list includes all the affected apps I found in my testing. The “! name~=’’” part excludes shadows on any “Unknown” windows, this prevents a visual glitch with the XFWM alt tab switcher.

    shadow-exclude = [
    “! name~=’’”,
    “name = ‘Notification’”,
    “name = ‘Plank’”,
    “name = ‘Docky’”,
    “name = ‘Kupfer’”,
    “name = ‘xfce4-notifyd’”,
    “name *= ‘VLC’”,
    “name *= ‘compton’”,
    “name *= ‘Chromium’”,
    “name *= ‘Chrome’”,
    “name *= ‘Firefox’”,
    “class_g = ‘Conky’”,
    “class_g = ‘Kupfer’”,
    “class_g = ‘Synapse’”,
    “class_g ?= ‘Notify-osd’”,
    “class_g ?= ‘Cairo-dock’”,
    “class_g ?= ‘Xfce4-notifyd’”,
    “class_g ?= ‘Xfce4-power-manager’”
    ];

    Avoid drawing shadow on all shaped windows (see also: --detect-rounded-corners)

    shadow-ignore-shaped = false;

    #################################

    Opacity

    #################################

    menu-opacity = .9;
    inactive-opacity = .9;
    active-opacity = 1;
    frame-opacity = .9;
    inactive-opacity-override = false;
    alpha-step = 0.06;

    Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0)

    inactive-dim = 0.2;

    Do not let dimness adjust based on window opacity.

    inactive-dim-fixed = true;

    Blur background of transparent windows. Bad performance with X Render backend. GLX backend is preferred.

    blur-background = true;

    Blur background of opaque windows with transparent frames as well.

    blur-background-frame = true;

    Do not let blur radius adjust based on window opacity.

    blur-background-fixed = false;
    blur-background-exclude = [
    “window_type = ‘dock’”,
    “window_type = ‘desktop’”
    ];

    #################################

    Fading

    #################################

    Fade windows during opacity changes.

    #fading = true;

    The time between steps in a fade in milliseconds. (default 10).

    fade-delta = 4;

    Opacity change between steps while fading in. (default 0.028).

    fade-in-step = 0.03;

    Opacity change between steps while fading out. (default 0.03).

    fade-out-step = 0.03;

    Fade windows in/out when opening/closing

    no-fading-openclose = true;

    Specify a list of conditions of windows that should not be faded.

    fade-exclude = [ ];

    #################################

    Other

    #################################

    Try to detect WM windows and mark them as active.

    mark-wmwin-focused = true;

    Mark all non-WM but override-redirect windows active (e.g. menus).

    mark-ovredir-focused = true;

    Use EWMH _NET_WM_ACTIVE_WINDOW to determine which window is focused instead of using FocusIn/Out events.

    Usually more reliable but depends on a EWMH-compliant WM.

    use-ewmh-active-win = true;

    Detect rounded corners and treat them as rectangular when --shadow-ignore-shaped is on.

    detect-rounded-corners = true;

    Detect _NET_WM_OPACITY on client windows, useful for window managers not passing _NET_WM_OPACITY of client windows to frame windows.

    This prevents opacity being ignored for some apps.

    For example without this enabled my xfce4-notifyd is 100% opacity no matter what.

    detect-client-opacity = true;

    Specify refresh rate of the screen.

    If not specified or 0, compton will try detecting this with X RandR extension.

    refresh-rate = 0;

    Set VSync method. VSync methods currently available:

    none: No VSync

    drm: VSync with DRM_IOCTL_WAIT_VBLANK. May only work on some drivers.

    opengl: Try to VSync with SGI_video_sync OpenGL extension. Only work on some drivers.

    opengl-oml: Try to VSync with OML_sync_control OpenGL extension. Only work on some drivers.

    opengl-swc: Try to VSync with SGI_swap_control OpenGL extension. Only work on some drivers. Works only with GLX backend. Known to be most effective on many drivers. Does not actually control paint timing, only buffer swap is affected, so it doesn’t have the effect of --sw-opti unlike other methods. Experimental.

    opengl-mswc: Try to VSync with MESA_swap_control OpenGL extension. Basically the same as opengl-swc above, except the extension we use.

    (Note some VSync methods may not be enabled at compile time.)

    vsync = “opengl-swc”;

    Enable DBE painting mode, intended to use with VSync to (hopefully) eliminate tearing.

    Reported to have no effect, though.

    dbe = false;

    Painting on X Composite overlay window. Recommended.

    paint-on-overlay = true;

    Limit compton to repaint at most once every 1 / refresh_rate second to boost performance.

    This should not be used with --vsync drm/opengl/opengl-oml as they essentially does --sw-opti’s job already,

    unless you wish to specify a lower refresh rate than the actual value.

    sw-opti = false;

    Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is detected, to maximize performance for full-screen windows, like games.

    Known to cause flickering when redirecting/unredirecting windows.

    paint-on-overlay may make the flickering less obvious.

    unredir-if-possible = true;

    Specify a list of conditions of windows that should always be considered focused.

    focus-exclude = [ ];

    Use WM_TRANSIENT_FOR to group windows, and consider windows in the same group focused at the same time.

    detect-transient = true;

    Use WM_CLIENT_LEADER to group windows, and consider windows in the same group focused at the same time.

    WM_TRANSIENT_FOR has higher priority if --detect-transient is enabled, too.

    detect-client-leader = true;

    #################################

    Window type settings

    #################################

    wintypes:
    {
    tooltip =
    {
    # fade: Fade the particular type of windows.
    fade = true;
    # shadow: Give those windows shadow
    shadow = false;
    # opacity: Default opacity for the type of windows.
    opacity = 0.85;
    # focus: Whether to always consider windows of this type focused.
    focus = true;
    };
    };

Save the file as “compton.conf” in “/home/username/.config” (you will need to show hidden files and folders in order to see the “.config” folder)

Where “username” is your actual username.

That’s it, if you now log out and back in, you should find you have panel and menu shadows plus some transparencies on your menus. Though, it will only come on after a few seconds delay. That was what the “sleep” command was for in the bash script. This is to minimize the risk of the system not picking the script up at login due to doing many other jobs at the same time.

If you don’t want as much transparency or none at all, edit the “compton.conf” file you just made. You should be able to see where the values are for transparencies. But, let me know if you can’t find them.

If you need more help or that I explain anything I have mentioned in more detail I will be happy to. So, please do let me know.

Also, just let me know if you tried it and it worked out well for you

2 Likes

Ah…just one caveat

I have implemented this on 16.04. Thus, though I cannot confirm for a fact this will work on 16.10, I see no reason why it wouldn’t. But, I thought I should mention it.

In Ubuntu-MATE 16.04 mate-panel had shadow, but it was sometimes tricky to make it appear. In 16.10 it appears that there is no panel shadow at all, as if mate-panel was excluded from casting shadow. There is no shadow under panel using marco, compiz, mutter. There is option to have shadow using compton, but it’s not a perfect solution (shadow is on top of every window under panel).

So I have question - will panel shadow be back in 17.04?

If you use the comton.conf file I mentioned up-thread, it should work

I ran across this:

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/MATE#How_do_I_enable_the_panel_shadow.3F

Haven’t tried it. Looks to be a bit different from our .desktop file:

Icon=mate-panel
Exec=mate-panel
StartupNotify=true
Terminal=false
X-MATE-Bugzilla-Bugzilla=MATE
X-MATE-Bugzilla-Product=mate-panel
X-MATE-Bugzilla-Component=general
X-MATE-Bugzilla-Version=1.12.2
Categories=GTK;System;Core;
OnlyShowIn=MATE;
NoDisplay=true
X-MATE-AutoRestart=true
X-MATE-Autostart-Phase=Panel
X-MATE-Provides=panel
X-MATE-Autostart-Notify=true

Steve - you're right, we can make compton to draw shadow under panel, but when we maximize any window this panel shadow is also cast on window border (like in this screenshot below)

so compton would be a good solution for this problem, but this little problem with shadow cast on maximized window is annoying.

And in 16.04 problem was different, and it could be solved, like V3xx mentioned, by delaying panel to appear after other parts of desktop - because that problem was race condition (i think between panel and caja/nautilus - this bug was first introduced in Ubuntu 10.04).

Problem in 16.10 is not about race condition, because that old solution no longer works. I suspect that something was changed when MATE was ported to GTK3, something in panel or Marco.

1 Like

Ah…I hadn’t noticed that because I am using a dark theme

Does anyone knows if panel shadow bug is fixed in MATE 1.18? I know 1.18 was just released, but maybe someone tried it already?

@Dolsilwa; No, is not “fixed” :frowning: I don’t think is a bug maybe doesen’t work with GTK3 or might work but is not implemented, normaly should show atleast with compiz… look at unity uses compiz also is gtk3 and has the shadow in the top bar

I’ve been searching and searching without luck… I hate that flat look, maybe some of the Dev’s has an idea how can we enable it.

Starting to wonder if I’m gonna change Mate Dekstop to other Desktop