KDE Plasma 5.22 Adds Adaptive Opacity + Will Avoid Useless Rendering When Screen Is Off

[markg85]

I do find it great how KDE has chosen to implement this!

Sure, one can say that they want to mimic features of Windows or macOS by adding this. And there might in fact be themes benefiting from this change to get ever more close to feeling like a real macOS theme under linux.

But then again, we have the ability to choose how we want this and that's great!

[markg85]

Yeah, I agree that KDE is very flexible. Maybe a bit too flexible, because it gets overwhelming.



Yeah, GNOME is pretty user-friendly, but KDE is not.

Well, that's the beauty in open source. And specifically in the wildly diverse differences between kde and gnome.

Gnome is more of a "we choose for you and you just take it or leave it".
KDE is more of a "we provide sane defaults but we also provide the settings to tweak the heck out of them"

Those are two completely different philosophies. You apparently don't feel at home at KDE. That's fine, use gnome instead.
I personally have the exact opposite. I don't feel at home when using gnome but do when using KDE so i go for KDE.

[oiaohm]

So the OS / Wayland / X11 shall cache all unplugged monitor configs and create virtual desktop for them because we don't know if the monitor is actually just temporarily shutdown. Then we need to provide extra UI elements to remove those virtual desktop manually in case they are truly unplugged. See? This is definitely not a matter of "absolute position" but a bad design of the new port. In best scenario with software help the end users still need to do extra clicks or run extra commands for stuff that was automatic in the past.

And unfortunately, we are not in the best scenario right now. Most OS just treat shutdown'd DP monitors as unplugged and move windows positioning accordingly, thus the mess up.

You missed what the problem is here. Absolute position system. Means for a window to displayed on a monitor to has to have a mapped absolute position this require running the applications event loop to update the applications absolute position valves stored inside the application. Remember with absolute address system for a window to be displayed it has to have a current valid absolute position.

Wayland usage of relative positions. Means it can put a window on a different screen without the application itself having to process anything.

The worst with absolute position system is like the followering.

Monitor [1] [2] [3] Now you remove monitor [2] so now the screens change to [1][3] position in the absolute image so now all windows on monitor [2] and monitor [3] have had to run their event loops and alter their positions when monitor [2] reappears now all those window have to move again. The window position information changes you do the more chances you have for something goofing up.

Now lets look at the same thing with relative position. [1] [2] [3] you remove [2] only the windows on [2] at all have to run event loop this is only if their is a GPU change.

The reality is under wayland setting up a virtual desktop for a closed screen is fairly simple for a compositor todo. Under X11 or Windows here all screens are basically glued into one huge image and removing a monitor can result in changing the position of the other monitors in that image so triggering a mass application running of event loops so applications know where they are on screen comes a risky mess.

Think you are part way though walking though the application event loops moving the windows because a monitor has been removed and the monitor comes back. This is one of the things that cause really mangled window placement. This running of application event loops leading to mangled windows placement at times is because of usage of absolute position system. Relative position system as the base has it advantages.

[billyswong]

Really in a lot of ways turning off monitors or unplugging neither really should screw up windows placement if possible. This is one of the problems with absolute positions. Under wayland there is no reason why items on turned off/unplugged monitor could not come a virtual desktop. This is made really simple due to relative addressing.

So the OS / Wayland / X11 shall cache all unplugged monitor configs and create virtual desktop for them because we don't know if the monitor is actually just temporarily shutdown. Then we need to provide extra UI elements to remove those virtual desktop manually in case they are truly unplugged. See? This is definitely not a matter of "absolute position" but a bad design of the new port. In best scenario with software help the end users still need to do extra clicks or run extra commands for stuff that was automatic in the past.

And unfortunately, we are not in the best scenario right now. Most OS just treat shutdown'd DP monitors as unplugged and move windows positioning accordingly, thus the mess up.

[JackLilhammers]

It'd be usable if the search wasn't hot garbage :P The massive latency would be bad enough as is, but the fact that it only sometimes gives you the application you want just makes using it a nightmare.

For one, try searching "uninstall". Half the time, the first result, instead of "Add or remove programs" or whatever the entry is called, it gives you just the settings app itself:

Settings
Related: "uninstall"

There are terms that produce weird results in every desktop search and if you want to uninstall something the easiest way is to search for that and the hit uninstall from the result contextual menu.
Other than that I'm not having problems with Windows 10 desktop search. At least not more than with Gnome or Kde

[oiaohm]

This is actually a bad behaviour because when one uses multiple monitors, turning on/off monitors sequentially mess up the windows positioning. Turning off monitor should be different from unplugging.

Really in a lot of ways turning off monitors or unplugging neither really should screw up windows placement if possible. This is one of the problems with absolute positions. Under wayland there is no reason why items on turned off/unplugged monitor could not come a virtual desktop. This is made really simple due to relative addressing.

Another worry of the "avoid useless rendering" is if it will break vnc or any other remote desktop services.

Useless rendering is bad for laptop battery life so has to be fixed. Those making remote desktop services have got away with being lazy under X11 and not informing correctly that they are capturing. Think about it if vnc or equal server had spun up a virtual monitor that was registered as a clone of the output display wanted over remote desktop turning the display off would still have a registered display so it would not have come unplugged/turned off state because the virtual display would still be connected. Yes there is a vkms kernel driver in Linux that could be used for this.

[billyswong]

Iirc, when you turn off a DP monitor, it actually goes away (as if unplugged). So that's easy to tell. HDMI doesn't do that though, so it might be tougher.
Bear in mind, I have little knowledge of inner working of DP and HDMI, this is just something I've picked up at some point.

This is actually a bad behaviour because when one uses multiple monitors, turning on/off monitors sequentially mess up the windows positioning. Turning off monitor should be different from unplugging.

Another worry of the "avoid useless rendering" is if it will break vnc or any other remote desktop services.

[darkbasic]

What I would love to read is "plasma on Wayland is finally considered stable and on par with X11"

[QwertyChouskie]

Not really. I mean Windows has its quirks, just like Kde and Gnome, but in the end is pretty usable

It'd be usable if the search wasn't hot garbage :P The massive latency would be bad enough as is, but the fact that it only sometimes gives you the application you want just makes using it a nightmare.

For one, try searching "uninstall". Half the time, the first result, instead of "Add or remove programs" or whatever the entry is called, it gives you just the settings app itself:

Settings
Related: "uninstall"

[chromer]

KDE is most complete Desktop now we have in open-source world.