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Author Topic: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)  (Read 3487 times)

max096

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Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« on: December 13, 2018, 01:39:18 pm »

I'm currently using Fedora 29 on my Dekstop system.

JRiver mostly runs fine. But moving the Window is sluggish. Every Option Window in JRiver is completely fine (but uses gnomes default window decoration). Is it possible to turn off styling for the Window decoration? So that it uses the default gnome Window decoration of gnome, Windows Explorer or whatever the case may be?

JRiver is not the odd man out btw. It's the same with the Android emulator in Android studio. There it also feels slow as f*ck to move it around with the "phone look"-skin. But there you can easiely turn it off with a toggle and then its completely fine. Just feels wrong having a completely (actually) overkill system and have your windows lag when you move them places. Not skinning it is even arguably less work. I just can't figure out an obvious way how to turn it off, if there is one.
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2018, 01:58:22 pm »

The default Adwaita skin? There's a Adwaita skin I made here: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106397.0.html

It's not the dark version though (I can't recall if Fedora uses the light or dark Adwaita), but the light version.

MC uses its own system for window drawing and has its own skinning system and it's not really possible to change it to allow native controls, decorations and whatnot without rewriting parts of the app, which could take a year or two. The only way to accomplish a "native" feel is to create a MC skin based on the operating system/desktop environment/theme you're using. I've done some, I have plans for more, but I have little time to do them. :-\

P.S. The window lagging thing is a known thing - If I recall correctly it happens more/worst when using a Nvidia GPU with the Nvidia proprietary drivers. Even with an overkill system, parts of GNOME are pretty laggy even with a higher-end GPU and high refresh rate monitor due to how it was developed. Hopefully that changes in GNOME 4 if they ever get around to beginning development. ;)
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mwillems

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #2 on: December 13, 2018, 05:41:13 pm »

The default Adwaita skin? There's a Adwaita skin I made here: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106397.0.html

It's not the dark version though (I can't recall if Fedora uses the light or dark Adwaita), but the light version.

MC uses its own system for window drawing and has its own skinning system and it's not really possible to change it to allow native controls, decorations and whatnot without rewriting parts of the app, which could take a year or two. The only way to accomplish a "native" feel is to create a MC skin based on the operating system/desktop environment/theme you're using. I've done some, I have plans for more, but I have little time to do them. :-\

P.S. The window lagging thing is a known thing - If I recall correctly it happens more/worst when using a Nvidia GPU with the Nvidia proprietary drivers. Even with an overkill system, parts of GNOME are pretty laggy even with a higher-end GPU and high refresh rate monitor due to how it was developed. Hopefully that changes in GNOME 4 if they ever get around to beginning development. ;)

Allegedly there should be some definite lag improvement in Gnome 3.32 FWIW; there's been a lot of performance work landing in Gnome upstream to deal with how laggy it is (especially on Wayland).
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max096

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2018, 01:02:44 pm »

could take a year or two

I don't think think that would take someone familiar enough with the code base more than one day to get it basically working.

Could be that I'm completely wrong. I didn't yet program C++ and I'm not too sure how it is there. But I'm aware of how it works with JavaFX or elecron. You have to go the extra mile to skin everything and what I'm asking for is skip skinning for what I'd call window decoration (the borders around your window with close button and so on) and just don't do anything with it. Leave it alone and it should use whatever it uses on your system by default. I don't want it to look like gnome, I want it to work properly.

Seeing how all the options menus don't skin the window and just whats inside it and they work 100% fine as I would expect them to. I'm about 99% confident all I'm asking for is a single true/false option and a bunch of if statements to skip some code you're currently running no matter what. How that would possibly take 2 years is beyond my understanding.
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max096

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2018, 01:10:40 pm »

Allegedly there should be some definite lag improvement in Gnome 3.32 FWIW; there's been a lot of performance work landing in Gnome upstream to deal with how laggy it is (especially on Wayland).

Currently, I'm having GNOME Shell 3.30.2. Not using wayland as NVIDIAs drivers don't work very well with it. Require some hackery to get it working AT ALL and then I have some select few programs I'm using currently break on Wayland anyways. So... not for me, yet.

There are no laggs though, other than in Windows that skin the entire thing. The only Window I have where I could not turn it off though is JRiver. Steam also skins the border, but somehow it works perfectly fine. No issues there. Guess they really mean it when they say they are somewhat invested in Linux. Most things that I know have a complete skin on Windows don't on Linux, or allow for you to turn it off. Like Discord is completely skinned on Windows. On Linux by default it isn't. For the Android emulator I talked about before. By default it's skinned, but you can turn it off easiely and then it goes from garbage performance to hero. Well actually whats inside the Window always is fine. Just moving it places is a pain.
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2018, 01:13:34 pm »

I don't think think that would take someone familiar enough with the code base more than one day to get it basically working.

They'd probably have to redo the UI from scratch to allow that, which indeed would take a year or two.

I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. Like I said, the only option is to use a different skin or create a new skin based on your desktop environment and/or theme.
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I don't work for JRiver... I help keep the forums safe from Viagra and other sources of sketchy pharmaceuticals.

Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit + Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur 64-bit | Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit (Intel N305 Fanless NUC 16GB RAM/256GB NVMe SSD)
JRiver Media Center 32 (Windows + Linux) | Topping D50s DAC

max096

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2018, 01:49:43 pm »

They'd probably have to redo the UI from scratch to allow that, which indeed would take a year or two.

I wouldn't hold my breath on this one. Like I said, the only option is to use a different skin or create a new skin based on your desktop environment and/or theme.

It's hard for me to believe that though, especially because your pogramm allows it. Is there a way to get the source code for JRiver as someone who paid for it and look into it? Your window layout would really have to MASSIVELY get screwed over for this to require a complete UI rewrite to work. Whatever framework you used obviously does not demand you to skin the windows otherwise why would all your option Windows not do it? https://imgur.com/a/Cq2iDIZ
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mwillems

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2018, 01:59:59 pm »

It's hard for me to believe that though, especially because your pogramm allows it. Is there a way to get the source code for JRiver as someone who paid for it and look into it? Your window layout would really have to MASSIVELY get screwed over for this to require a complete UI rewrite to work. Whatever framework you used obviously does not demand you to skin the windows otherwise why would all your option Windows not do it? https://imgur.com/a/Cq2iDIZ


Just to be clear, neither Awesome Donkey or I actually work for JRiver.  I'm just a forum user and he's a forum admin, but neither of us are employees or devs of JRiver.  We're just sharing what we know in our free time.
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JimH

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2018, 03:33:56 pm »

max096,
You can trust what mwillems and Awesome Donkey say.  They are two of our most knowledgeable users.

JRiver does its own drawing, so you may see different behavior than from other programs.

Source is not available.

Quote
Your window layout would really have to MASSIVELY get screwed over for this to require a complete UI rewrite to work.
Those kinds of comments won't help.

If MC doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work.
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max096

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2018, 06:07:52 pm »

max096,
You can trust what mwillems and Awesome Donkey say.  They are two of our most knowledgeable users.

JRiver does its own drawing, so you may see different behavior than from other programs.

Source is not available.
Those kinds of comments won't help.

If MC doesn't work for you, then it doesn't work.

Well... it works for me. But that does not mean it's the best thing I could imagine it to be. It's just the best thing out there I could find, still. The only real alternative I found was roon and it's expensive af and then I can run it in wine. PLEX and EMBY are both garbage for music imo. So really there aren't a whole lot of things left to choose from to begin with. At least it works. It solved a problem for me in that I can now actually use Linux without being annoyed by my music library being gone. Since I can just connect to the same library that's running 24/7. But still, could be better nevertheless.

So take this as a compliment with a grain of salt, or so.
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #10 on: December 14, 2018, 06:22:26 pm »

Next time I do a Fedora VM install, I'll try to look and see if I can pull some of the dark Adwaita theme elements (mainly the close/minimize/maximize/restore button images) and see if I can quickly make a dark version of the Adwaita skin. I'll add that to my to-do list. I also, at some point, need to do the same thing with the new Mint-Y theme for Linux Mint and the new theme Ubuntu uses.

If anyone has access to the needed images (the close/minimize/maximize/restore button images) in PNG format in both normal 1X and bigger 2X sizes, please send them my way as that's the most time consuming part of creating a new skin. If I had those, I could probably squeeze out a skin within an hour or so. :P
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I don't work for JRiver... I help keep the forums safe from Viagra and other sources of sketchy pharmaceuticals.

Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit + Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur 64-bit | Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit (Intel N305 Fanless NUC 16GB RAM/256GB NVMe SSD)
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Awesome Donkey

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #11 on: December 17, 2018, 09:20:29 am »

I don't want to raise expectations, but with 20 minutes I had to spare I did start a Adwaita Dark skin and got the basic parts done. I haven't bothered ripping the close/minimize/maximize/restore buttons yet, so they're using the regular Adwaita skin images (hence why they look bad).

But as you can see, the basics are there however I'm not guaranteeing I'll be able finish it and release it though as I might run into an issue I can't workaround (which has happened several times before when attempting to make a Xfce skin and a KDE Breeze skin). But I'll try and see how far I can get - usually Adwaita was pretty easy to do in the past. :)
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I don't work for JRiver... I help keep the forums safe from Viagra and other sources of sketchy pharmaceuticals.

Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit + Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur 64-bit | Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit (Intel N305 Fanless NUC 16GB RAM/256GB NVMe SSD)
JRiver Media Center 32 (Windows + Linux) | Topping D50s DAC

Awesome Donkey

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Re: Use Gnome's default Window decoration (Possible?)
« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2018, 10:17:59 am »

Well, good news. I was able to squeeze out another 30 minutes so I went ahead and ripped the needed images and got it to a working skin and tweaked the main.xml file. That said, I didn't do any 2x images for the skin... yet. For the time being, it'll be without them until I have more time to rip those.

I also updated the normal Adwaita skin and its images too, since the theme has been updated since I first created the skin (and like the other I didn't update/add the 2x images, yet...). Also improved its looks to look more like Adwaita so it's a win-win there as well.

I guess I'll make a new skin pack release here in a few. :)

EDIT: The updated skin pack which includes an Adwaita Dark skin is here: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,106397.0.html

It's not perfect (and likely needs more tweaking) but it's better than nothing. :)
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I don't work for JRiver... I help keep the forums safe from Viagra and other sources of sketchy pharmaceuticals.

Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit + Ubuntu 23.10 Mantic Minotaur 64-bit | Windows 11 2023 Update (23H2) 64-bit (Intel N305 Fanless NUC 16GB RAM/256GB NVMe SSD)
JRiver Media Center 32 (Windows + Linux) | Topping D50s DAC
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