Compiz Fusion Sphere is here! Yay!

All hail Desktop Sphere!

Finally, onestone has managed to code the desktop sphere many people were waiting for! He wrote about it on his blog. It's quite a neat plugin, and also merges the cubecaps plugin with the cube addon plugin, making for less plugins to worry about (the cubecaps plugin was sort of minor in the configurations, anyway).

Only available in git of course, but great to try out for those of us who have access to that ;)

And digg it too so others know: http://digg.com/linux_unix/Compiz_Fusion_Truly_Spherical_Desktop_View_Arrives

Blog post: http://dev.compiz-fusion.org/~onestone/blog/?p=10

Edit: sorry about messing up the planet, it's an annoying bug :(

Edit 2: To clarify, the sphere is available in the "Cubeaddon" plugin.

A call for feedback :)

NOTE: Comments have been closed... please go to the post in the forums instead so we have one thread instead of two! Thanks a lot! :)

Hey, according to the poll on the top right of this blog, a LOT of you liked this recent episode! Thanks a lot for letting me know your opinions (and if you didn't like it feel free to voice that view as well).

I was reviewing the episode just now, (since I made it around midnight and want to make sure I didn't make any horrible slipups, and that kind of thing happens around then), and I was thinking maybe I should post the music info near the beginning of the video as in a music video (and some austrian ads I've seen).

That got me into thinking that I don't nearly get as much feedback as I should. I would really like to know how you think I could make this better. Seems you guys liked the animation at the beginning and the more-smooth syncing with the beat at the beginning.

However, in my current style, I don't really have too much to videoblog about between big visual updates like the cylinder. I just make a video demonstrating the latest and greatest coming out of the great minds of our Compiz Fusion coders. I can't make a videocast about every bugfix, of course.

But I get the feeling that people don't like these long gaps... a videocast should be more regular, it seems. Should I post solutions to common problems? Configuration tutorials? Perhaps other recent developments in the world of Linux awesomeness? Please... let me know via the forum post.

(speaking of which, I hadn't realized that you needed a google account to post a comment with my settings, and have since changed that... all are now welcome as long as they get past the CAPTCHA!)

Fusioncast Episode IV

(if you are seeing this from the planet, without the youtube video, visit the actual blog post to see this episode)

NOTE: I'm experimenting with the new "annotations" feature on Youtube. You'll have to go to the video's page to see them though. Let me know what you think!

Yes, you read that right! It's another episode of Fusioncast, this time reviewing:

• Cube cylinder
• Mag plugin
• Showmouse
• The new expo curve
• Updates to atlantis
• An excerpt about the wii head tracking plugin

Notes:

You will have to compile compiz fusion from source to get the cylinder and other new plugins. Some plugins may already be available in the Hardy beta, however.

I don't have a Wii controller, so I took a segment from Smspillaz's video (see below). Learn more at his blog.

Since everyone always asks about my theme, I'll just let you all know right now: This time, it's the Ubuntu Hardy "Human-Murrine" with customized colors (I like that they finally included this option for the Human theme!). The wallpaper is linked below. Using the "Glossy" metacity theme. Running Hardy Heron beta.

I'm also (as usual) using Kiba-Dock, SVN version. It's extremely alpha software, and quite buggy since it's not a release (I'm not complaining), but I like to run it for fun (and because it looks so cool).

I used Blender to make the little 3d compiz-cube, and I will upload the source files soon. Patience, guys. I intend to upload all the source videos and files as well for your tinkering benefit. It's coming.

EDIT: Sorry for forgetting to mention the video editor! I use kdenlive (as in the other fusioncasts). It's a little improved in the Hardy repos, but still extremely buggy. I'm waiting for all those MLT bugs to get fixed, guys!!

Please comment if I've forgotten to mention something. I'll set it aright.

Links:

Wallpaper
Dock on the bottom of the screen
Link to the website of the amazing cute movie with the rabbit (it's an open source movie!)
The original Wii head tracking video by Johnny Lee
Wii head tracking with compiz fusion by Smspillaz
Where the cool music came from

Kdenlive

Original video file + all source files coming soon!

Please email me at fusioncast at gmail dot com!
I am on IRC occasionally under the nick of gavintlgold.
Also, comment by clicking on the link below.

Community Video: Fun with WiiMote and Compiz Fusion

Since I won't have time to make videos over this holiday, I've decided to look over videos I enjoy or find interesting and post them here as "Community Videos." Of course, they will all remain about Compiz Fusion and related topics!

This was made by our very own SmSpillaz, whom you should know by now:

This video demonstrates how you can use a WiiMote along with Compiz Fusion to do some pretty cool stuff.

Note that it is done all with the inbuilt accelerometer, and I'm using the 'Hack' WiiMote driver via uinput. There is an actual driver being developed by the freedesktop guys as we speak (And it works with MPX too :))

I didn't use the IR pointer because it's a pain to use with plugins that warp the pointer (Such as cube) and puts your pointer out of sync.

More info at smspillaz.wordpress.com

My observations: It looks like an interesting way of manipulating Compiz Fusion (and a desktop in general) but certainly not something that would be useful or have a purpose other than impressing people with your 1337 h4x0r skillz :P. Still, good work Sam!

Please note that I did not make this video, or any others in the future labeled "Community Video." Refer to the Youtube page to give the author feedback.

Video: Practical Uses of Desktop Effects

I hope you enjoy this silly video parodying Compiz Fusion's effects. :) This is all I will do for the next few weeks, since I will be busy on vacation :D

High Quality MPEG file here

Thanks for answering the poll by the way.

Episode III

Original MPEG added.


As a special treat, I present episode III of FusionCast. It's a no-talking episode, but it features Freescale, Shelf, and Freewins, and a few less known features of these three new(ish) plugins.

Hope you enjoy, and don't mind if the quality is a little below my usual standard--I made this in a few hours.

All three plugins are available through the GIT repository.

Notes
=======

Freescale is a simple hack by SmSpillaz that changes Freewins so that it scales windows instead of rotating them. It has a few bugs, and is a hack, so the code is less polished.

Shelf, on the other hand, is based on the miniwin plugin from long ago. The name was suggested by me in the forums, when I had the same sort of idea. Since it's coded by KristianLy (he made many plugins and is a member of the team), and has been made from scratch, it will most likely have less bugs and be under longer development. Also, the point of Shelf is more useful than Freescale is, since Freescale is what its name says--free-scaling. It has about as much use as Freewins. Shelf, however, should be useful as a sort of replacement to minimization.

The bugs at the end are just a little example of silly things you can do. If you make all your windows at the same 3d angle as the desktop, it can look sort of like you are working on a 3d table. Of course, you can't use your windows while using Freewins, but.... it looks cool. :D


Original MPEG here.

Please email me at fusioncast at gmail dot com!
I am on IRC frequently under the nick of gavintlgold.
Also, comment by clicking on the link below.

Clarification about shelf

Some folks were confused about the use of shelf, so I decided to post my idea right here on the blog. Kristian (the developer working on it) doesn't want to do the group integration, because he doesn't feel that it's good to have a dependency on it. But other than that he's going to base it on the following forum post (and how miniwin was in its old stages):

Another Plugin Idea: Shelf Plugin

Now, I wish i could code this, but I don't know anything about it. But here's my idea.

We have a new plugin called "Shelf". It requires the group/tab plugin to work (and integrates well with it). The basic idea: When you initiate the event, the plugin scales down to a small size that sits on your desktop (with a nice reflection). Here's a mockup: Ok, now we have a mockup of a mouseover (of course it would look slicker, i just drew this with the pencil tool):

Here's another idea: A different mode called "card" mode that would look like this (and enable rotation, etc): [this was added before freewins was invented, right now we might be able to just have freewins do this]

For more, and the discussion, click here.