[Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

[woodsmoke]

I'm quite happy with the present widgets but they can get "cluttery" if one has a lot of them going on.

So, for grins and giggles I installed gKrellm just to see what would happen. It works fine as usual except...

The "transparent" or "invisible" skins have always had "problems" there are no less than three available, but none of them presently work even though they did before, but one had to search them out for a while.

There is even a very recent thread(as of 2010) on it, so, it is not Kubuntu's problem, it is a systemic problem for KDE4 and above, I guess. And, I would imagine that this is WAAAAYYYY down on the list of things to take care of!

The theme does not even show up in the configure for gKrellm so it is not that one has done anything wrong.

http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=79387.0

woodsmoke

[Snowhog]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Do a search here in KFN on gkrellm by dibl. He has transparancy in gkrellm. It takes some doing, as the available such skins don't work. But, you can get a transparent gkrellm. dibl has done it.

[woodsmoke]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

WOAH!!!

dlbl is a gKrellm fan!

The VERY first other that I've encountered!!

woodsmoke

[Laysan_A]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Hi,

I'm going to jump this thread. I'm also a gkrellm fan and I too want transparency!

Dibl, if you can shed some light on this issue I would appreciate it.


(As an aside...)

I just compiled my gkrellm from source. For the longest time I have been living without proper temp. and voltage values (fan speeds, too). Gkrellm WOULD NOT recognize my atk0110 sensors! The k8 sensors just didn't work very well. Come to find out, support for libsensors has been compile out of the ubuntu (perhaps all of debian) package since 2007 (for "safety" reasons). After a cursory search, it seems that in 2007 libsensors was updated and gkrellm was not. Problems ensued. There was a patch created very soon, but libsensors support was never turned back on. After compiling my own, I am very pleased to report that my temps and voltages and fan speeds are showing-up very nicely thanks to the atk0110 support in libsensors.

Okay, I realize I'm in the wrong forum (just now ), but really, I see no reason to move...I'm using Lucid rather than Maverick - although I'm using a backported 2.6.35 kernel, Oh, and I'm also using kde4.4.2

[woodsmoke]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

I don't think they will get on you toooooo bad for being in the "wrong forum"

Thanks for the comment though.

As an aside I've advocated at one other forum and saw other people advocate at other forums that maybe "the" forum could start a SIG....Special Interest Group for gKrellm fans...but nobody ever seemed interested, maybe gKrellm fans are to independent! lol

woodsmoke

[Laysan_A]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

I rather think most of them have gone over to top or conky, since most folks like a transparent theme nowadays.

[woodsmoke]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

I agree about Conky, I really liked the whole thing back when CrunchBang was in the previous incarnation because it seemed to be all of a set piece as it were, but when they went to debian it kind of lost it's luster, no haveing to search out where an app was and put it in the links etc. now, all that stuff just works so... you still get to tweak the bewhatsus out of conky but...

what, if I might is.."top".

woodsmoke

[Laysan_A]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

I've never actually used conky, or top, for that matter.

Top is basically a highly configurable task manager, or process manager, with a number of incarnations.

Here's a link to a short informational piece about top(s).

[Laysan_A]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Hey! I GOT IT!

Here's a linkshowing the result (so far). The theme is "invisible-jkx". I found it on some guy's site (Here it is). Anyway, except for the two invisible themes (black and white) from kde-look (which don't work for some reason), all the transparent themes work.

I discovered the fix by looking for insights in pages discussing the same problem in conky. I found a good one, and thinking the same situation might apply to gkrellm, I tried it and IT WORKED! Here's the original post. My gratitude to the author. I'm going to reproduce the process here for posterity's sake, and because the command has changed slightly with the location of the plasma-desktop-appletsrc file.

So, gkrellm uses fake transparency. It samples the desktop at its coordinates and reproduces the image as its background. Gkrellm doesn't use the user's desktop to sample from - it uses the root desktop image - hence the strange-looking colors I got whenever I tried one of the transparent themes.

Okay, so first you need to make your current desktop image your root desktop image. To do this you need to install "feh"

sudo apt-get install feh

After that's done, enter this in terminal:

feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --bytes=+11`"

Okay, now it needs to be set-up so that it'll load automatically. The feh documentation recommends setting this in ~/.xsessionrc (if you don't have one, make one with kate - and don't forget the dot before the name ):

`cat $HOME/.fehbg`

That done, we arrive at a problem. I could use some help here, if anyone has any idea how to fix it. It's not a deal-breaker, but it's definitely inconvenient if you like to change your wallpaper a lot.

The feh program creates a file called ~/.fehbg to store the actual path of the image used as 'wallpaper'. Unfortunately, it stores it like this:

feh --bg-scale '/home/chris/Pictures/shadows_1280.jpg_cropped.png'

The two single quotes enclosing the path are unfortunately read as part of the path, so when feh (or if it hands it off to bash or kde) looks for the image file it can't find it. You get a no such file error in feh.

The only way I know of to fix it (I tried removing various sets of quotation marks from the original feh command to no avail) is to open the ~/.fehbg file in kate and remove the two single quotations, so it looks like this:

feh --bg-scale /home/chris/Pictures/shadows_1280.jpg_cropped.png

But you must still do one more thing. You must change the permissions on ~/.fehbg to root, or the image's path will be overwritten the next time it's opened (at next login), with the single quotes included. Doing so fixes the issue in the short term, but when you change desktop images you'll have to reinstate your user privileges on the file, and re-run the original command to allow the file to be written to by feh (with the new image path), then edit the file again to remove the single quotes. Then you'll have to reset the root permissions (kind of a pain, huh?)

I'm not very good with bash, so the easiest way for me to change permissions on a file or folder is to open dolphin as root, like this:

sudo dolphin

Then just right-click on the file, select properties, permissions, and select and change appropriately. By the way, never use a rooted dolphin for general file management or poking around - close it as soon as you no longer need it (fair warning.. )

So far, it has been set-up so that every login the current desktop image is set to X root's desktop. This is because the actual path to the current plasma desktop image is listed in .fehbg. When the desktop image changes, the X root desktop image will stay the same (and so the Gkrellm background) unless the original bash command is re-run to set the path for the new plasma desktop image in .fehbg.

For me, the best way to do this was to create a bash script, place it my home directory (where I wouldn't lose it), and make a menu shortcut for it, including assigning an icon (so I wouldn't forget what or where it was).

All that's required for this simple script is to open kate and paste this:

#!/bin/bash

exec feh --bg-scale "`grep 'wallpaper=' ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --bytes=+11`"

Then save it in your home dir. as whatever name you want, with a .sh extension. I called mine TransparentGkrellm.sh You can test that it works by dragging it into an open terminal. If your .fehbg file is still set to root, you'll get an error message that feh was unable to write to the .fehbg file. That means it worked as expected. To make TransparentGkrellm executable, you need to select it in dolphin, right-click and select properties, and tic make executable. Now you can click on it and it will run.

If I knew anything about scripting, I could automate the entire process of establishing the new root image and removing the single quotes from the .fehbg file, so the whole process would require a single click. Unfortunately, establishing the new image is all I get, for now. (Could use some help here! )

To put TransparentGkrellm in the menu, open the menu editor (right-click on the menu icon - or if you're using Lancelot, open the menu and click on the Lancelot icon in the upper right corner) and decide on a category. I put mine in settings. Select the category, then select new item. Type in the name, comment and description (make it descriptive enough that you will not forget what it does). In the command block place the full path and name (~/TransparentGkrellm.sh). If you click on the blank icon image you can choose a nifty icon for it. I chose one from the settings manager for setting the desktop image (appropriate...). Click to save the new settings and that's it!

Well...my two desktop images weren't quite aligned...the root image was set with bg-scale, which I assume is the same as the scale option in plasma. I had my plasma desktop set to scale (keep proportions), which ended-up being slightly different. I changed it to scale and voila, they matched (If for some reason your desktop doesn't look good in scale mode try "feh --help", or "man feh" in terminal for some options). Now the issues are fine-tuning the appearance. One thing I will say about that concerns the window type. In dock or panel mode (set in gkrellm) the window stays above normal windows (although you may be able to change that in special window settings - have to try and see). This is not desirable, even though it looks better right off the bat, because of the fake transparency. In normal window mode, even when "no borders" is selected in the window management dialogue, there is still a shadow under the window, making it stand out too much for my taste. This, too, may be addressable in special window settings. The important thing now is...it works, and without too much trouble.

Edit:

Okay, I got the results I wanted by setting the window type in gkrellm to be dock or panel, then selecting to force below other windows in special window settings in kde. Here's the final result.

Also, for anyone not very familiar with gkrellm:

You can change the width in the gkrellm configuration dialogue (right click in the little button that appears near the top) in General, Options.

You can change the height of any of the charts by right-clicking on the chart (mine are mostly at 15).

You can change the height of gkrellm (it'll vary considerably depending on the theme) by going to Themes, Options, Scale.

You can also globally change the fonts, also in Themes.

EDIT (5 Sept. 11):

Okay, for those (few) of you who may access this topic looking for guidance, I have a small admission to make. This is going to sound really scatter-brained (in fact it is... I'm scatter-brained.), but it seems that my .xsessionrc isn't working, and it hasn't been working for some months now.

Understand, this is all a bit hazy to me (scatter-brained, remember?), but some months ago, I seem to recall logging-in and Gkrellm wasn't transparent. I was in the middle of something else (who knows...), so I checked my files really quickly and they were there (I'm sorta' making this up, because I don't absolutely remember doing this - but it feels right, so I'm standing by it), so I went into Lancelot and clicked my menu entry for Transparent Gkrellm (which if you remember points to a script I made and placed in Home, called TransparentGkrellm.sh) and voila! Gkrellm was transparent. So I just opened my KDE System Settings utility and went to the Advanced tab and opened Auto Start, and placed an entry there for TransparentGkrellm.sh (use the Add Script dialog), and set it to run at start-up. Problem solved. The details are hazy, but I'm pretty sure that's how it went down, and I quickly forgot about it entirely (sorry).

I don't have the slightest idea why .xsessionrc isn't working right now. Frankly, I'm not a big tinkerer, I don't have much of a background in programming, and none at all in Linux, so basically, as long as it works I'm happy. This isn't the first time .xsessionrc has stopped working, and if you want to fiddle with it, here's a thread about fixing .xsessionrc from a year or so ago on a Gnome system.

[woodsmoke]

Re: gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Well Bravo Laysan, Bravo!

A most simple and elegant solution if I ever saw one!

And your desktop is way kewl! You have even insipred me to dig out my old script for Conky!

If I might ask, I assume that the particular name of the skin that is in the screeny is invisible jkx, I'm using "invisible".

And, great writeup on configuring width etc.

woodsmoke

[Laysan_A]

Re: [Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Thanks!

I like gkrellm. I have to say I'm disappointed that in (k)ubuntu at least, it seems to be on the way out. It seems to me it still has a lot of possibilities for further development - esp. skinning. But (k)ubuntu, or maybe debian, really needs to re-enable libsensor support, and people who might want to try gkrellm in kde need to know they can use a transparent skin.

[woodsmoke]

Re: [Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

I agree about it seeming to be "on the way out".

Quite a few perfectly good apps seem to be going that way so that the bandwagon can move on to other things.

Some of it seems to be some Debian, some Ubuntu, don't know that it is particularly Kubu since it is derivative of the others.

too bad though.

woodsmoke

[dibl]

Re: [Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Here's the feh line from my conky, fwiw:

${texeci 1000 feh --bg-scale "`grep 'userswallpapers=' ~/.kde/share/config/plasma-desktop-appletsrc | tail --lines=1 | sed 's/userswallpapers=//'`"}

[Laysan_A]

Re: [Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.

Hmm...the texeci, I looked it up and found it was a conky command, but am I correct in assuming it is calling-up a conky version of tex to handle the scripting (I don't know that it matters...I don't know a thing about latex, other than basically what it is)?

I don't see anything that jumps out and says THAT'S IT!, but I'll give it a shot (without the texeci bit ).


Okay, I tried it. It gave me a list, with complete path, separated by commas, of every image I've "applied" as wallpaper, from oldest to newest, then feh said it was unable to find the file. So, no go.

I tried adding the -s option to sed, but it didn't change anything. I also tried altering the tail option, but that didn't seem to affect anything either...

Edit:
Well, exchanged 'userwallpapers=' with 'wallpaper=' as in the first example and it ran, but still copied the link to .fehbg enclosed in ' '.

I made a bug report against feh for this issue today.

[Guest]

Re: [Solved] gKrellm transparent skins don't work in KDE 4 and above.


Hey Laysan_A,
How did you get your icons on your desktop to look 3-D ??
What theme is that? Is it a theme??

Thanks