Set window transparency in Gnome

Question

I'd like to make my IDE window partially transparent. I achieved this in Unity using compiz as described in the accepted answer to: How to make a window transparent in gnome. However I don't believe compiz will work for this with gnome unless I'm mistaken. There WAS a gnome extension for this but it has been abandoned and the github repo is gone. Anyone know of a way to achieve this? I'm on ubuntu 17.10

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 13 '19 at 18:34

You could change window opacity/transparency by changing property _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY via xprop command.

Run:

xprop -format _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0x7FFFFFFF

and then click on window to set it to 50% opacity.

0x7FFFFFFF - 50% opacity
0xFFFFFFFF - 100% opacity

Set opacity via providing window id (obtained from xwininfo):

xprop -id 0x3a00006 -format _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 32c -set _NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY 0x7FFFFFFF

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 02 '18 at 15:14

6

There's another extension called Glassy Gnome that works with newer versions of gnome-shell.

For more details consult the included README.

edited Mar 02 '18 at 15:14

GAD3R

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answered Mar 02 '18 at 15:11

don_crissti

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Thanks I'll try it out when I get home tonight but looks promising! – Zachscs Mar 02 '18 at 17:50
This allows me to see the windows below, but not the wallpaper. Can it be fixed? Is there a way to *only* see the wallpaper? – Lyuboslav Jun 09 '20 at 12:05

Set window transparency in Gnome

2 Answers2