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Aurorae is a theme engine for KWin window decorations. It is built against the unstable API of KWin
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in KDE 4.3. Aurorae uses SVG to render the decoration and buttons and there is a simple config file
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for configuring the theme details.
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This theme engine uses Plasma technologie to render the window decoration. Every detail can be
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themed by the usage of SVG. The theme engine uses Plasma's FrameSvg, so you can provide SVG files
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containing borders. This is described in more detail in techbase:
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http://techbase.kde.org/Projects/Plasma/Theme#Backgrounds
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The theme consists of one folder containing svgz files for decoration and buttons, one KConfig file
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for the theme details and one metadata.desktop file which you can use to name your theme, author
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Although the engine uses Plasma technology, it isn't Plasma. So it does not know anything about
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Plasmoids and you will never be able to put Plasmoids into the decoration. That is out of scope of
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Aurorae uses the features provided by KWin 4.3. So the themes can provide their own decoration
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shadows and it is recommended that your themes provide those. The engine supports ARGB decoration
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which is enabled by default. If you provide a theme using translucency, please make sure, that it
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works without compositing as well.
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The window decoration has to be provided in file "decoration.svgz". This svg has to contain all the
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elements required for a Plasma theme background. The decoration has to use the element prefix
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If you want to provide a different style for inactive windows you can add it to the same svg. The
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inactive elements must have the element prefix "decoration-inactive". The theme engine tests for
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this prefix and if not provided inactive windows will be rendered with the same style as active
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You have to provide a special decoration for opaque mode, that is when compositing is not active.
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This opaque decoration is used for generating the window mask. The element prefix is
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"decoration-opaque" for active and "decoration-opaque-inactive" for inactive windows. The mask is
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generated from the active window.
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In order to better support maximized windows there exists a special frame svg called
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"decoration-maximized". In the same way as for the general decoration you can specify a version for
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inactive, opaque and inactive-opaque. This results in the following names:
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* decoration-maximized
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* decoration-maximized-inactive
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* decoration-maximized-opaque
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* decoration-maximized-opaque-inactive
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In all cases only the center element will be used. There is no need to specify borders. Please note
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that in case of a window with translucent widgets the center element will be stretched to the size
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of the complete window.
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The following fallback strategy is used: if inactive is not present it falls back to the active.
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If opaque is not present it falls back to the translucent. If none of the maximized elements are
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present the center element of the decoration is used!
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In order to support Fitts' Law all TitleEdge Settings are set to 0. So the buttons will be directly
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next to the screen edges. You have the possibility to overwrite these settins (see below).
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You have to provide a svgz file for each button your theme should contain. If you do not provide a
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file for a button type the engine will not include that button, so your decoration will miss it.
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There is no fallback to a default theme. The buttons are rendered using Plasma's FrameSvg as well.
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So you have to provide the "center" element. Borders are not supported
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You can provide the following buttons:
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Each button can have different states. So a button could be hovered, pressed, deactivated and you
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might want to provide different styles for active and inactive windows. You can use the following
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element prefix to provide styles for the buttons:
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* active (normal button for active window)
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* inactive (normal button for inactive window)
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* hover (hover state for active window)
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* hover-inactive (hover state for inactive window)
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* pressed (button is pressed)
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* pressed-inactive (pressed inactive button)
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* deactivated (button cannot be clicked, e.g. window cannot be closed)
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* deactivated-inactive (same for inactive windows)
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You have at least to provide the active element. All other elements are optional and the active
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element is always used as a fallback. If you provide the inactive element, this is used as a
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fallback for the inactive window. That is, if you provide a hover element, but none for inactive,
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the inactive window will not have a hover effect. Same is true for pressed and deactivated.
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Reasonable that means if you provide a deactivated and an inactive element you want to provide a
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deactivated-inactive element as well.
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The configuration file is a normal KConfig file. You have to give it the name of your decoration
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with suffix "rc". So if your theme has the name "deco", your config file will be named "decorc".
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The following section shows the possible options with their default values.
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TitleAlignment=Left # vorizontal alignment of window title
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TitleVerticalAlignment=Center # vertical alignment of window title
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Animation=0 # animation duration in msec when hovering a button and on active/inactive change
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ActiveTextColor=0,0,0,255 # title text color of active window
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InactiveTextColor=0,0,0,255 # title text color of inactive window
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UseTextShadow=false # Draw Shadow behind title text
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ActiveTextShadowColor=255,255,255,255 # Shadow text color of active window
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InactiveTextShadowColor=255,255,255,255 # Shadow text color of active window
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TextShadowOffsetX=0 # Offset of shadow in x direction
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TextShadowOffsetY=0 # Offset of shadow in y direction
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HaloActive=false # Draw halo behing title of active window (since 4.5)
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HaloInactive=false # Draw halo behing title of inactive window (since 4.5)
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LeftButtons=MS # buttons in left button group (see http://api.kde.org/4.x-api/kdebase-workspace-apidocs/kwin/lib/html/classKDecorationOptions.html#8ad12d76c93c5f1a12ea07b30f92d2fa)
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RightButtons=HIA__X # buttons in right button group
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Shadow=true # decoration provides shadows: you have to add padding
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[Layout] # uses Layout Manager (see http://api.kde.org/4.x-api/kdebase-workspace-apidocs/kwin/lib/html/classKCommonDecoration.html#7932f74c28432ad8de232f1c6e8751ce)
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TitleEdgeTopMaximized=0
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TitleEdgeBottomMaximized=0
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TitleEdgeLeftMaximized=0
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TitleEdgeRightMaximized=0
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ButtonWidthMinimize=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthMaximizeRestore=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthClose=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthAlldesktops=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthKeepabove=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthKeepbelow=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthShade=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthHelp=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ButtonWidthMenu=? # optional - default depends on ButtonWidth
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ExplicitButtonSpacer=10
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PaddingTop=0 # Padding added to provide shadows
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PaddingBottom=0 # Padding added to provide shadows
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PaddingRight=0 # Padding added to provide shadows
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PaddingLeft=0 # Padding added to provide shadows
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All theme files (decoration, buttons, metadata.desktop and configuration file) have to be stored in
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one directory with the name of the theme (this has to be identical to the one used for the config
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file). You have to create a tar.gz archive from that directory. This archive is the theme, which
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can be installed in the kcm for window decorations.