Who needs Emerald, et cetera?

[gwilson]

I'm impressed with the work done by the people who develop Emerald and the other software packages that give us fancy screen effects such as transparency and rotating cubes. It's good that we have these features to play with, especially since the competition has similar eye candy.

But I am wondering if there are any really practical advantages to be derived from all of this complexity? I have my screen effects turned on, but more often than not they keep me from clearly seeing what I want or make me feel as if I am wasting time and resources while things melt or dissolve through screen transitions.

I don't mean to be a Grinch about this, but what are your attitudes and experiences concerning all these visual special effects?

Glen
:confused:

[jespdj]

Turning all possible Compiz Fusion eye candy on is probably a bit too much. There are, however, some effects that can really make using the desktop easier. If I press Shift + Alt + Up for example, all windows are shown in a non-overlapping way and I find this a very convenient overview of all open windows. (I don't know what that effect is called and if it's on by default).

Window minimizing and maximizing, and other animations are also very useful, because they show you what's happening on your desktop. Suppose everything just went without any animation - then it would be harder to follow what is happening, especially if you've accidentally clicked on something.

So I believe that there is certainly value in the eye candy beyond just looking nice. Some effects, such as painting with fire, are ofcourse funny but totally useless.

By the way, you're not the first one who wants to discuss this topic.

[gwilson]

All good points!

[ticopelp]

Effects in Compiz like Scale are pretty invaluable to me. Being able to instantly see all the windows I have open, and quickly switch to another one with a mouse gesture, is awesome when I'm working with a lot of graphics or text files. It's probably the single most useful plugin in Compiz, and one I use daily. Without it, I'm often lost and annoyed as I try to alt-tab through a window list.

The ring switcher also allows me to switch to minimized apps easily, without having to hunt for them on a window list. I also find this handy in my daily work.

Many of the other effects, like the animations, don't have a strictly practical value, but honestly, I work in front of a computer all day -- my feeling is that the computing environment may as well be pleasing to the eye and fun to work in. So Compiz has an aesthetic benefit as well for me. For some people, this is completely unimportant, but I find an attractive computing environment makes me more productive in general.

[macogw]

The negative plugin is also really good for night-time computer-usage. It makes the "ahh I'm staring at a lightbulb!" feeling subside.

[sunexplodes]

I also find that things being visually appealing makes me more productive.

For instance. I feel more relaxed when my desk is tidy and free of clutter, when I can look up from it and see a beautiful piece of art on the wall, when the lighting is calm. As a result, I get more work done because being at my desk is actually an enjoyable experience.

The same can be said of desktop effects to some extent. I actually enjoy using my computer more when windows cast a drop shadow, when my theme fits together seamlessly. It's a lot easier to motivate myself to actually sit here and do REAL WORK when simply doing basic tasks is a pleasant looking experience.

[Pethegreat]

I have grown up with the plain old 2d windows desktops all my life. The idea of 2 desktop work spaces is some new and amazing to me.


I look at all the nice eye candy with the programs and think "Nice, but I don't need it." I have plenty of free resources on my computer, I just don't have a good reason to type "sudo apt-get install compiz-fusion"

If I was trying to sell the idea of Linux to people, i would be running stuff like compiz all the time.

[jrusso2]

I turn all that stuff off. Everything just seems a lot more stable and less buggy with it off.

[NovaAesa]

It looks pretty :) And I'm not really worried about the resources either. I don't notice any speed difference and I have never had to use swap space so memory isn't an issue.

[yatt]

I need them. I almost go into shock when I go onto a school computer and the window doesn't wobble...

[Ocxic]

opacity is great for me just mouse over the window that's being bloacked and everything else fades so you can see, great when your following tutorials and such.

[SomeGuyDude]

I've written this before, but here it is again.

Compiz (not Emerald so much, that's just pretty) makes the desktop turn from flickering lights into "objects". Here are the effects I cannot live without.

1) The "Magic lamp" minimizing.
2) Wobbly windows.
3) Dodge on focus.
4) Fold on open/close.

What happens is the windows become solid entities. They wobble when I drag them around and move around one another instead of simply popping through when I focus on something. When they minimize they zip down into my dock instead of vanishing, and when they open or close they fold up. I know I just reiterated why I listed, but think about the subconscious effect.

My desktop stops feeling like a computer and starts feeling like an actual three-dimensional workspace. I also throw on transparency effects to just enhance the effect (as well as let me see things through other windows such as when I'm copying text from one to another).

It's not that I find them useful to productivity, per se, it's that they change how I feel I'm interacting with my computer.

[jespdj]

I turn all that stuff off. Everything just seems a lot more stable and less buggy with it off.
There are indeed some applications which do not work well when Compiz is turned on. Since Gutsy is the first Ubuntu release with Compiz included by default, you can expect that not everything will work perfectly. I guess it's just a question of time until the applications get fixed so that they do work well with Compiz.