KWin

L'affidabile e flessibile window manager per il Plasma Desktop KDE, ora con effetti grafici!

Panoramica delle caratteristiche

Stabile e affidabile
Supporto agli effetti 3D
Facile configurazione
Efficienza migliorata

KWin (pronuncia "kwin") è il gestore delle finestre (window manager) per il Plasma Desktop KDE. Ti offre un completo controllo sulle tue finestre, aiutandoti nel tuo lavoro. Disegna la decorazione delle finestra, cioè la barra in alto in ogni finestra dotata di pulsanti (configurabili) come chiudi, massimizza e minimizza. Inoltre gestisce il posizionamento delle finestre e lo scambio tra queste.

KWin supporta la composizione (compositing), che significa utilizzare gli effetti 3D per gestire le tue finestre. Questa caratteristica può rendere più morbida, più facile, più efficiente e più naturale la gestione delle finestre. I suoi requisiti hardware sono molto modesti e quasi ogni sistema ragionevolmente moderno dal 2002 la supporta. Ci sono ancora alcuni problemi con alcuni hardware, maggiori informazioni al riguardo possono essere reperite su techbase

Caratteristiche in pratica

Fai clic con il tasto destro del mouse sulla decorazione di una finestra o utilizza Impostazioni di sistema per accedere alla nuova e più facile configurazione di KWin. Qui puoi abilitare gli effetti per gestire con maggiore efficienza le tue finestre. Puoi, per esempio, utilizzare Presenta le finestre come effetto per lo scambio delle finestre. Invece di mostrarti le icone o anteprime molto piccole delle tue applicazioni, questo effetto le organizza in una griglia così che tu possa velocemente scegliere quella desiderata. È sufficiente utilizzare la scorciatoia ALT-TAB e tenere premuto il tasto ALT. Ora puoi utilizzare TAB per scorrere le finestre o semplicemente attivare quella giusta utilizzando il mouse. Premendo velocemente i tasti ALT-TAB ti mostrerà la finestra seguente, proprio come ha sempre fatto.

Se il tuo server X supporta già la composizione abilitarla è facile come aprire Impostazioni di sistema, selezionare il modulo Desktop, scegliere Effetti del desktop e mettere il segno di spunta su Abilita gli effetti del desktop. Impostazioni più avanzate della composizione (come sincronizzazione verticale, render diretto, tipo di composizione) sono disponibili tramite la finestra di dialogo Avanzate. Personalizzare il comportamento degli effetti di KWin significa aprire la scheda Tutti gli effetti e scegliere i plugin che vuoi utilizzare. Nota che solo una parte dei plugin è in grado di funzionare con la composizione basata su XRender. Per un'esperienza completa è necessario utilizzare la modalità OpenGL.

Employing motion physics, KWin provides your windows with a more natural feel. New desktop effects like the Cube desktop switcher and Magic Lamp minimize animation have been added. Improvements in the existing effects make window management smoother than ever. KWin has seen many performance improvements to enable these effects even on low-end hardware. Elaborate checks have been build in to ensure users with low-end hardware are not presented with an unusable setup. KWin detects the capabilities of the hardware and if needed gracefully scales its effects down. You can take control and disable these checks or change settings like the global animation speed to fine-tune your experience. When your computer is under heavy load, KWin will automatically disable the compositing temporarily to keep things running smoothly. It will notify you if it does so, and you can re-enable compositing by pressing SHIFT+ALT+F12. Finally, support for multiple screen handling has been improved in KWin using the new Kephal library. You can move maximized windows between Xinerama screens and the addition of external screens is handled correctly.

More information about what was introduced in KDE SC 4.2 can be found at the following link:

kwin movie

Tutorials

You want an application to launch in a specific size and position every time

Sometimes the screen position of an application is vital to your comfort, so use the flexibility of KWin to make sure it's always where you want it.

Position the window where you want it to open, then right-click on the title-bar, choosing Advanced -> Special Window Settings. This will open a settings window, with appropriate entries already made. All you need to do now is select the Geometry tab and check Position and Size. OK - you're finished!

Script the window manager from the command line

Use the WMIface utility.

Customise the position of titlebar buttons

Take a look at System Settings -> Appearance -> Windows -> Buttons tab - and enable Use custom titlebar button positions. The options open to you may depend on your distribution or theme, and it's clear that there is more to come.

Perhaps you would like more space between the Close button and the Minimise/Maximise pair? So you will want to add a spacer - two if you wish. The way to do it was not intuitive to me. The description on the customise page seems clear enough once you understand it, but it wasn't immediately to me.

To simply move things around you work with the speciman titlebar - that is the dark blue bar with a large KDE on it. Drag icons there and you will see them move in the preview window at the bottom of the screen.

You may find that you have other icons available to you. A circle indicates that the button will set that window on all desktops. Another icon that you may find useful is Shade - a toggle between rolled up (titlebar only visible) and normal view. These icons are added by dragging from the text description window onto the speciman title bar - just position them as you want to use them.

If you prefer a Classic, KDE3-style Desktop

Right-click on your desktop - select Desktop Settings (or Appearance Settings, in some distros). Change the Type: from Desktop to Folder View. The whole desktop is now a folderview, and another right-click on the desktop will allow you to select FolderView Settings. Set the folderview to the directory you want to use as your desktop.

A video of KWin features

A demonstration of features is here

Open applications directly into a different desktop

Use commands like

kstart --desktop 4 kate

Using with small screens (eg Netbooks)

Make the window decorations smaller

System Settings -> <menuchoice>Appearance -> Windows -> Window Decoration tab - select Laptop.

Change the base fonts

On many netbooks the screen is very clear, so that reading fonts much smaller than you expect is feasible. On my Acer Aspire One I find that 8 point is a good base settings.

Make Firefox use smaller fonts

Experimentation with about:config did not bring satisfactory results. Do this instead. Download and install gtk-chtheme from this website. Using that tool you can either set a specific font size, or better still, tell it to use your KDE desktop settings. This will work with Firefox as well as any gtk applications that you use.

KMail's Aggregation options take up too much space

See this FAQ to change it.

KMail's Folder-List Tooltips hide too many folder names

See this FAQ to change their behaviour

Gallery

The Gallery holds many screenshots of past and present desktops and effects.