Better Blur

Better Blur is a fork of the Plasma 6 blur effect with additional features and bug fixes.

Features

• X11 and Wayland support
• Force blur
• Rounded corners with anti-aliasing
• Static blur for much lower GPU usage
• Adjust blur brightness, contrast and saturation
• Refraction (by @DaddelZeit and @iGerman00)

Bug fixes

Fixes for blur-related Plasma bugs that haven't been patched yet.

• Blur may sometimes disappear during animations
• Transparent color schemes don't work properly with the Breeze application style

Support for previous Plasma releases

Better Blur will usually support at least one previous Plasma release (second number in version - 6.x). Exceptions may be made if there is a large amount of breaking changes.

Currently supported versions: 6.4

Installation

Important

If the effect stops working after a system upgrade, you will need to rebuild it or reinstall the package.

Manual

Dependencies

• CMake
• Extra CMake Modules (required - package name: extra-cmake-modules on Arch Linux)
• Plasma 6
• Qt 6
• KF6
• KWin development packages

Arch Linux

Wayland:

sudo pacman -S base-devel git extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools kwin

X11:

sudo pacman -S base-devel git extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools kwin-x11

Debian-based (KDE Neon, Kubuntu, Ubuntu)

Wayland:

sudo apt install -y git cmake g++ extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools-dev kwin-dev libkf6configwidgets-dev gettext libkf6crash-dev libkf6globalaccel-dev libkf6kio-dev libkf6service-dev libkf6notifications-dev libkf6kcmutils-dev libkdecorations3-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev

X11:

sudo apt install -y git cmake g++ extra-cmake-modules qt6-tools-dev kwin-x11-dev libkf6configwidgets-dev gettext libkf6crash-dev libkf6globalaccel-dev libkf6kio-dev libkf6service-dev libkf6notifications-dev libkf6kcmutils-dev libkdecorations3-dev libxcb-composite0-dev libxcb-randr0-dev libxcb-shm0-dev

Building

git clone https://github.com/pearOS-archlinux/liquid-gel
cd liquid-gel
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

For the effect to appear in Desktop Effects for all users, install system-wide with sudo make install and prefix /usr. A per-user install (e.g. ~/.local) will only show the effect for that user.

Usage

This effect will conflict with the stock blur effect and any other forks of it.

1. Install the plugin.
2. Open the Desktop Effects page in System Settings.
3. Disable any blur effects.
4. Enable the Better Blur effect.

For more detailed descriptions of some options, check out this wiki page.

Window transparency

The window needs to be translucent in order for the blur to be visible. This can be done in multiple ways:

• Use a transparent theme for the program if it supports it
• Use a transparent color scheme, such as Alpha
• Create a window rule that reduces the window opacity

Obtaining window classes

The classes of windows to blur can be specified in the effect settings. You can obtain them in two ways:

• Run qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.queryWindowInfo and click on the window. You can use either resourceClass or resourceName.
• Right click on the titlebar, go to More Options and Configure Special Window/Application Settings. The class can be found at Window class (application). If there is a space, for example Navigator firefox, you can use either Navigator or firefox.

High cursor latency or stuttering on Wayland

This effect can be very resource-intensive if you have a lot of windows open. On Wayland, high GPU load may result in higher cursor latency or even stuttering. If that bothers you, set the following environment variable: KWIN_DRM_NO_AMS=1. If that's not enough, try enabling or disabling the software cursor by also setting KWIN_FORCE_SW_CURSOR=0 or KWIN_FORCE_SW_CURSOR=1.

Intel GPUs use software cursor by default due to this bug, however it doesn't seem to affect all GPUs.

Credits

• a-parhom/LightlyShaders - CMakeLists.txt files