How to: Nautilus transparent background patch [UPDATED]

here you go ... a nautilus transparent background patch for everone who is not afraid to compile nautilus from source

what you will get:
- a transparent nautilus desktop window in compiz, which has the usual desktop integration (icons and context menu)
- a working wallpaper plugin, that can be set to show a different wallpaper on every screen
- you can even use mplayer to play a video on your background

how it's done (old):
- the nautilus desktop window is modified to render a transpart background, if a composited screen is detected
- window type is changed from _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP to _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_NOTIFICATION
- window is set to be keept below all other windows and the mouse wheel event is proxied to the root window

the old version of the patch was developed for nautilus 2.28.1 (Ubuntu 9.10) first and then applied to nautilus 2.30.1 (Ubuntu 10.04)

how it's done (new):
- the nautilus desktop window is modified to render a transpart background, if a composited screen is detected
- the new, improved version does not need to change the window type, it looks like gnome supports a transparent root window now. old code was removed.
- a detection routine has been added, to support the change of the "composited" mode of the desktop, switching from compiz to metacity and back is being detected
- does not need the "sleep" workaround on startup, like the old version
- tested with 10.04 and 11.04

please follow the detailed instructions in the 98_transparent-background-v2.txt file

have a nice day

pr3ddi

Thank you very very much! Great patch!

Waited long time before i got it for 2.32.2

Thanks for this V2. Upgraded Nautilus Elementary 2.32.2 with this new version on 11.4 ok.
Can't rename a desktop item with another window visible on workspace (with follow mouse focus), but ok on empty workspace, so really minor thing, much better overall beahaviour than V1, thanks again !

Thanks
It works great on Ubuntu 11.04 in gnome classic mode.

Will this work on 12.04?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Zhono

Will this work on 12.04?

---

Doubt it. The last version tested was Nautilus 2.x. Nautilus has reached version 3.4 now, which uses GTK+3, along with one heck of changes.