.gif)
Beryl (window manager)
Encyclopedia
Beryl was a compositing window manager
for the X Window System
which forked
from Compiz
in September 2006 and was re-merged in 2007, under the name of Compiz Fusion.
, announced on 19 September 2006 after Quinnstorm and the development team decided that the fork had come too far from the original Compiz started by Novell
(compiz-vanilla). After the Novell XGL/Compiz team (mostly David Reveman) refused the proposition to merge the Quinnstorm changes with compiz-vanilla, the decision was made to make a real differentiation. In 2007, they remerged into Compiz-Fusion.
Like Compiz
and unlike traditional window managers, Beryl delegated the drawing of window borders to a separate process, called a window decorator. There were three of them, all named after varieties of beryl
, although only Emerald was considered stable.
, Beryl ran acceptably well on a GeForce 3/Intel i855
/Radeon 7500
, 256MB of RAM, and a 1.2 GHz processor, although the processor is not a strong requirement . Version 7.1 of Xorg
and a recent version of Mesa 3D
was recommended. http://www.beryl-project.org/faq.php#gq5
have decided to merge their projects back into one. The Beryl project has been shut down in favor of the new merged project Compiz Fusion; its main activities will be focused on installation, configuration and additional plugins for addition to the core functionalities of Compiz, which will be responsible for core and base plugins.
Compositing window manager
A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display – it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows , and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop...
for the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
which forked
Fork (software development)
In software engineering, a project fork happens when developers take a legal copy of source code from one software package and start independent development on it, creating a distinct piece of software...
from Compiz
Compiz
Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
in September 2006 and was re-merged in 2007, under the name of Compiz Fusion.
Origin
Beryl was the project name for the Quinnstorm branch of CompizCompiz
Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
, announced on 19 September 2006 after Quinnstorm and the development team decided that the fork had come too far from the original Compiz started by Novell
Novell
Novell, Inc. is a multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
(compiz-vanilla). After the Novell XGL/Compiz team (mostly David Reveman) refused the proposition to merge the Quinnstorm changes with compiz-vanilla, the decision was made to make a real differentiation. In 2007, they remerged into Compiz-Fusion.
Differences
Notable differences between Compiz and Beryl were the following:- The window decorator, formerly known as cgwdCgwdEmerald Window Decorator is a window decorator needed by multi-windowed desktop computers for the Compiz compositing window manager, written by Quinnstorm....
, was renamed emerald. A cgwd theme could be ported to emerald by changing the extension from .cgwd to .emerald. - Beryl used a flat file backend instead of gconfGConfGConf is a system used by the GNOME desktop environment for storing configuration settings for the desktop and applications.Changes to this system are controlled by GConfd, a daemon. GConfd watches out for changes to the database, and when they are changed, it applies the new settings to...
, no GNOMEGNOMEGNOME is a desktop environment and graphical user interface that runs on top of a computer operating system. It is composed entirely of free and open source software...
dependency. - Initially had a large variety of extra plugins, and enhanced features in other plugins, later however most of the functionality had been ported to the compiz-extra package
- Contained three themeable decorators: Emerald, Heliodor, and Aquamarine.
- It had a theme manager called emerald-theme-manager.
- Created by the community at Beryl Project Forums.
Window decorators
Compiz
Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
and unlike traditional window managers, Beryl delegated the drawing of window borders to a separate process, called a window decorator. There were three of them, all named after varieties of beryl
Beryl
The mineral beryl is a beryllium aluminium cyclosilicate with the chemical formula Be3Al26. The hexagonal crystals of beryl may be very small or range to several meters in size. Terminated crystals are relatively rare...
, although only Emerald was considered stable.
- Emerald, the default window decorator and a continuation of cgwdCgwdEmerald Window Decorator is a window decorator needed by multi-windowed desktop computers for the Compiz compositing window manager, written by Quinnstorm....
, had its own theme format and supported effects like alpha transparency, a fork of Compiz's gtk-window-decorator. - Heliodor, another fork of Compiz's gtk-window-decorator, supported MetacityMetacityMetacity was the window manager used by default in the GNOME desktop environment until GNOME 3, where it was replaced by Mutter. The development of Metacity was started by Havoc Pennington and it is released under the GNU General Public License....
themes. - Aquamarine supported KWinKWinKWin is a window manager for the X Window System. It is an integral part of the KDE Software Compilation, although it can be used on its own or with other desktop environments.- History :- Look and feel :...
themes.
System requirements
According to the Beryl FAQFAQ
Frequently asked questions are listed questions and answers, all supposed to be commonly asked in some context, and pertaining to a particular topic. "FAQ" is usually pronounced as an initialism rather than an acronym, but an acronym form does exist. Since the acronym FAQ originated in textual...
, Beryl ran acceptably well on a GeForce 3/Intel i855
Intel GMA
The Intel Graphics Media Accelerator, or GMA, is a series of Intel integrated graphics processors built into various motherboard chipsets....
/Radeon 7500
Radeon
Radeon is a brand of graphics processing units and random access memory produced by Advanced Micro Devices , first launched in 2000 by ATI Technologies, which was acquired by AMD in 2006. Radeon is the successor to the Rage line. There are four different groups, which can be differentiated by...
, 256MB of RAM, and a 1.2 GHz processor, although the processor is not a strong requirement . Version 7.1 of Xorg
X.Org Server
X.Org Server refers to the X server release packages stewarded by the X.Org Foundation,which is hosted by freedesktop.org, and grants...
and a recent version of Mesa 3D
Mesa 3D
Mesa 3D is an open source 3D computer graphics library that provides a generic OpenGL implementation for rendering three-dimensional graphics on multiple platforms. It was initially developed by Brian Paul in August 1993, and is still maintained by him today...
was recommended. http://www.beryl-project.org/faq.php#gq5
Plugins
Included in the 0.1.4 release were the following plugins. As of the 0.1.4 release plugins were sorted into groups. Also introduced in 0.1.4 was a new plugin configuration interface that was more intuitive. Plugins were sorted into groups and the actual options for each plugin were also sorted more intuitively.- General Options: Configure general core settings (Rendering options, basic window manager settings, etc.)
- Accessibility: Plugins that provide accessibility features
- Input Enabled Zoom: Zoom accessibility tool with keyboard and mouse input capabilities
- Negative: Can turn the whole screen or single windows negative
- Opacify: Made windows easily visible when mouse is hovering over them
- Zoom Desktop: Older version of Input Enabled Zoom without the option for mouse or keyboard input
- Desktop: Plugins related to the desktop in general
- Clone Output: Output clone handler
- Desktop Cube: Represent multi-desktop workspaces as a cube
- Desktop Plane: Represent multi-desktop workspaces as a flat plane
- Rotate Cube: Added ability to rotate the multi-desktop cube
- Fade to Desktop: Hide all windows with a smooth fade
- Show Desktop: Hide all windows through use of a hotkey
- Development: Plugins that are generally only useful for developers
- Crash Handler: Launch a fall-back window manager if Beryl crashes
- Image Format: Plugins to providing support for loading and saving various image formats
- PNG: PNG image loader
- SVG: SVG image loader
- JPEG: JPEGJPEGIn computing, JPEG . The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and image quality. JPEG typically achieves 10:1 compression with little perceptible loss in image quality....
image loader - Text: Text based image loader
- Extras: Plugins with little utility
- Annotate: Allow the user to draw on the screen
- Benchmark: Simple performance measurement utility
- D-Bus: Allow effects to be controlled via D-BusD-BusIn computing, D-Bus is a simple inter-process communication open-source system for software applications to communicate with one another. Heavily influenced by KDE2–3's DCOP system, D-Bus has replaced DCOP in the KDE 4 release. An implementation of D-Bus supports most POSIX operating...
commands - Screenshot: Allow the user to take a screen shot
- Snow: Turn your desktop into a blizzard
- Splash: Show a splash screen on startup
- Water Effect: Create rain on the screen and other water effects
- Window Previews: Create live previews of windows when the mouse hovers over their window list entry
- Visual Effects: Plugins to provide visual effects
- 3D Effects: When rotating the desktop cube windows are stacked in 3D space representing their depth
- Animations: Animates windows at different times (minimization, closing, opening, etc.)
- Blur Effects: Blurring of transparent windows and motion blur effects
- Fading Windows: Fade windows on creation and destruction
- Trailfocus: Windows fade out based on inactivity
- Window Decorations: Draw window borders
- Wobbly Windows: Make windows move like Jelly
- Window Management: Plugins that provide window management related functionality
- Application Switcher: Similar to MS Windows alt-tab window switching
- Group and Tab Windows: Enable logical grouping of windows into tabs with live previews
- Move Window: Basic moving of window ability
- Place Windows: Locates windows in an appropriate position when created
- Put: Move windows around the screen and desktops through shortcut keys
- Resize Window: Basic window resizing ability
- Ring Window Switcher: Enable a wheel style window switcher through shortcut keys
- Scale: Similar to the ExposéExposé (Mac OS X)Exposé is a feature of the Mac OS X operating system. First previewed on 23 June 2003 at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference as a feature of the then forthcoming Mac OS X v10.3, Exposé allows a user to quickly locate an open window, or to hide all windows and show the desktop without the need...
window selector - Snapping Windows: Enable window snapping and edge resistance without the wobbly plugin
- Set Window Attribs by Various Criteria: Allow setting attributes of windows permanently based on program name, window class or window title. (e.g.:
c:konsole:80on the "Window Opacity" control would set the opacity of all instances of KonsoleKonsoleKonsole is a free terminal emulator which is part of KDE Software Compilation. Konsole was originally written by Lars Doelle.The KDE applications Konqueror, Krusader, Kate, Konversation, Dolphin and KDevelop use Konsole to provide embedded terminal functionality.- Features :* Tabbed terminals...
to 80%) - Tile: Used to tile windows with keyboard shortcuts
Releases
The first official release of the project (Version 0.1.0) along with Emerald and Beryl-manager came on 29 September 2006. The second 'stable' release (Version 0.2.0) came on 15 March 2007, shortly followed by an almost identical Version 0.2.1, the only changes being to update licensing and where the source code was stored.Beryl-Compiz merge
As of March 30, 2007, Beryl and CompizCompiz
Compiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
have decided to merge their projects back into one. The Beryl project has been shut down in favor of the new merged project Compiz Fusion; its main activities will be focused on installation, configuration and additional plugins for addition to the core functionalities of Compiz, which will be responsible for core and base plugins.
See also
- CompizCompizCompiz is one of the first compositing window managers for the X Window System that uses 3D graphics hardware to create fast compositing desktop effects for window management. The effects, such as a minimization effect and a cube workspace are implemented as loadable plugins...
- OpenGLOpenGLOpenGL is a standard specification defining a cross-language, cross-platform API for writing applications that produce 2D and 3D computer graphics. The interface consists of over 250 different function calls which can be used to draw complex three-dimensional scenes from simple primitives. OpenGL...
- XglXglXgl was an X server architecture designed to take advantage of modern graphics cards via their OpenGL drivers, layered on top of OpenGL via glitz. It supported hardware acceleration of all X, OpenGL and XVideo applications and graphical effects by a compositing window manager such as Compiz or...
- VirtualGLVirtualGLVirtualGL is an open source program which redirects the 3D rendering commands from Unix and Linux OpenGL applications to 3D accelerator hardware in a dedicated server and displays the rendered output interactively to a thin client located elsewhere on the network.- The problem :Normally, VNC and...
- AIGLXAIGLXAccelerated Indirect GLX is an open source project founded by Red Hat and the Fedora community, led by Kristian Høgsberg, to allow accelerated indirect GLX rendering capabilities to the X.Org Server and DRI drivers...
- KwinKWinKWin is a window manager for the X Window System. It is an integral part of the KDE Software Compilation, although it can be used on its own or with other desktop environments.- History :- Look and feel :...
- DeskSpace
- Nimi Visuals