I know that you have chosen this behavior to make the window labels better visible. But I don’t like it. Let me explain: My desktop is cluttered with windows on all workspaces. There are few times I get to see the wallpaper, set to a daily Unsplash motive. The old implementation of this effect greatly extended the time the usually beautiful wallpaper is visible to me, because this effect is essential to my workflow. I know, I could hide all windows or just minimize them. Sure. But with the old effect without blurring, it made the desktop more personal: When I have chosen a custom wallpaper, I was pleasant to also see it in Present Windows. It was mine. Now, what I get is this milk glass optics I just want to smash with a hammer to see my wallpaper again. Talking about alternatives: Current macOS 12 doesn’t even paint labels or program icons anymore in Mission Control. That’s a very questionable decision. But I like how Mac OS X 10.7 was painting the labels and placing the program icons, take a look for inspiration: https://youtu.be/lTU7i_DtrdQ?t=258 There is a subtle shadow below the icon, making it stand out regardless of the UI of the window. The label is white with a black font border. Doesn’t even need a dark label box like the old Presend Windows had. I recommend this as an alternative for blurring. EXPECTED RESULT No goddamn blurring, please! And just removing the blur but still bleaching the wallpaper like the option for the Overview effect currently does isn’t enough. Just show the pure wallpaper. KDE Plasma Version: 5.25.0 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.95.0 Qt Version: 5.14.4
Sorry, this is a design decision and a usability aid, as you acknowledged.
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1) > Sorry, this is a design decision and a usability aid, as you acknowledged. Let’s once again compare: The Gnome shell doesn‘t blur the wallpaper: It just draws a gray box around the window title name. That’s the same way the old Plasma effect used too to differentiate the window titles from the wallpaper. https://youtu.be/0_kb7Wft9OE?t=145s macOS doesn‘t blur the wallpaper: In Mission Control, you get your unblurred wallpaper and no window titles anymore in recent versions. But I have mentioned a good older release of OS X, 10.7, which had white font window titles with a black outline and program icons at the bottom of the windows with a subtle shadow. – And no blurring! – This is the best visual implementation there ever was IMHO: https://youtu.be/lTU7i_DtrdQ?t=258 Plasma 5.25: Blurs your lovely wallpaper, window titles are just black without an outline, program icons without shadow at the bottom of the window. Window title text still hard to read. There is a better way! Found this MR which suggests, the reimplemented Flip effect could get an option to turn off the annoying new blurring there too in the future: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kdeplasma-addons/-/merge_requests/168 That’s what I wish for the Present Windows effect too. Please give me an least an option to turn this blurring off.
Comparing to what others do generally isn't an effective line of reasoning in KDE; see https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Design/Lessons_Learned#Copying_other_platforms. A better argument is that this unlike for example the Task Switcher, this effect isn't visually themable, which means aesthetic preferences need to be accommodated by explicit options. On that basis, perhaps we can make it configurable.
I've just filed a merge request which would give you a tickbox in the settings of this effect to not blur the wallpaper. We'll see what the other devs think of that.
Closing this as the KWin devs agreed that this should not be an option. From the merge request: Vlad Zahorodnii ----------------------- I thought that we agreed no blur option is intentional. It's expected that some people may not like certain aspects of the window view, the question is how many, ie let's view it from 80-20 rule perspective. Adding options can be an "easy" way to satisfy all parties, but options make software buggy and harder to change in general. Guilherme Marçal Silva ----------------------------------- Would the user be able to disable blur in the windowview effect by disabling the blur effect globally? I couldn't test windowview so I'm not sure, however, at least with Overview and Present Windows, disabling the Blur effect globally doesn't disable the blur at all. If the same problem is present on windowview, then that's the problem that should be fixed instead. I also noticed the Overview effect does have a toggle for blur. If the blur is desirable for windowview, it should also be desirable for Overview, so it makes no sense to have a toggle for that in one effect and not the other. I don't think both effects should have a setting for blur though, actually, I think overview should drop that setting altogether and instead all blur should be controlled by enabling/disabling the blur effect globally. It really makes no sense UX-wise to control blur settings from all those different places. A user that disables blur would expect it to be gone everywhere. Making the use of blur consistent would solve the original bug report, clear the confusion, and be more logical and consistent from the user's perspective. [Reply] Niklas Stephanblome ------------------------------- The global blur option is described as: "Blurs the background behind semi transparent windows". But this is about bluring the background in plain sight.
Pretty sad. Thank you Niklas for your trying. I have answered them in the MR thread: https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/merge_requests/2579#9c044e8533c5c3fc938fc46dd0c805ea37d5271d @Guilherme: Wrong assumption about user’s intent. I like most of the blur elements of the UI, just not a blurred wallpaper where I could see my wallpaper before for a decade and half. To see my plain wallpaper behind just everyday window overviews and various task managers makes my desktop more personal. Blurring causes a more sterile look. @Vlad Not to be rude, but that sounds like the typical Gnome approach… There was no wallpaper blurring since 2008 in Kwin. You don’t see this in Gnome‘s or macOS’s related window overviews either, but it’s just the new standard out of nowhere now for Plasma without an option for turning it off. It made your desktop more personal when you could see your plain wallpaper throughout various window management effects. I’m pretty sad about this decision.
Let's continue the conversation in https://invent.kde.org/plasma/kwin/-/issues/106.