A way to port GNOME shell blur to Budgie?

Is there any way to port this blur to Budgie? It would be great if panels and plank could have this nice blur effect.

And even greater if desktop right click windows could get them too. Is there any way that it can be done?

This extension can be buggy, as the gnome-shell’s blur implementation is quite flawed in some ways.

Yep - yes - it can be implemented in the same way as the extension - just needs to be rewritten in Vala.

Should we - no - for the reasons given in the extension README - its buggy.

In reality - native blur is a GTK+4 thing - so the desktop and related apps needs to be ported to GTK+4.

Plus, I don’t really see the point.

Blur My Shell can blur the background in the overview and the lockscreen.
And it doesn’t blur the panel or the dash (=overview dock), it makes them transparent (to the background behind, with or without blur).

Budgie doesn’t have an overview, that’s already 2 moot points (overview and dash).

For transparency, Plank is Plank and it should be dealt in Plank (there’s probably a way to theme it for transparency).
If you’re using panel(s) or panels with Icon Task List as a dock, transparency can be achieved quite easily within the themes.
I didn’t see what the extension does to the lockscreen, I will leave this point aside.

So basically, you can already achieve what you want (except for blur when right clicking) through themes.

1 Like

Maybe I should just try setting panel and raven’s background as static blurred images. That might seem to work.

Transparency ≠ blur

Blur needs transparent element in UI to get visible, though ( and through ).

Any transparent element then shows background blurred : dock, panels, menus, context-menus, notifications, name it - the more transparent an element is, the more blurry its background gets.

When and if used « lightly » it’s a nice way for text / icons on foreground to stand out - depending on background complexity.

On smaller surface, another way to soften things is a solid « average » color fetched from the covered area ( modulated by UI’s dominant color ).

In theory it works. Actually it’s easy to get it unbalanced and « grotesque » somehow.

I’d say there are other fields to improve in Budgie’s aesthetic before adding blur :
⋅ all applets should share a common « style / appearance »,
â‹… ability to set transparency level for panels,
â‹… or to position panels when used as docks ( only centered nowadays )
⋅ with a « don’t reserve space » mode ( if you only need some applets to always sit above everything on your screen ).

1 Like

Don’t know why you need to specify that to me. :man_shrugging:
I was saying “blur my shell” contrary to its name doesn’t blur the 4 configurable bits.
It’s biggest selling point, blurring the background in the shell overview, doesn’t apply in Budgie. It’s also (lockscreen behind left aside) the only part it actually blurs.

The panel isn’t blurred for example, nor is the dash, they are made transparent so that it makes that background blur stand out more (or not, the extension let you pick).

Exactly what I said the extension did, yes.

Anyway, we agree on what it does, and on the fact that adding blur (say when triggering context menus or maybe budgie menu) is probably not the first thing to work on.

Your suggestions are indeed way above on the list.
Consistency in applets icons would be great for sure, for example the caffeine applet is not on the same level as other applets. And setting transparent levels to panels without tinkering with theme files would be lovely.

Sounds like an opportunity for a budding icon-designer

Not really sure how that would be implemented. Needs a better bigger brainer person than me!

Errr…indeed, or maybe I had thougt about something else and forget it while writing.

Those are just very generic thoughts about blur and transparency.

1 Like

I won’t pretend to be a designer but if there are guidelines or requirements or a generic « canvas » to iterate from… ?

Not an implementation but where we may find it


Opacity/transparency should only concern panels background color ( not content of panels ).

Maybe I should just wait until most things get ported to Gtk4. Thanks for all your help!

PS: It there a way to blur in-application in Gtk4? I cannot find a proper reliable source which Support blur in Gtk4 :pensive:

PPS: Why not just override the panel colour (with a new alpha/transparency value) in CSS file? It is not beginner friendly but we night be able to scriptify the process.

1 Like

Hi, developer of Blur my Shell here, just giving you some details

First, Blur my Shell is actually meant to blur overview, lockscreen (tweaking the existing blur), but also panel and dash (in the case where the dash is not already ahead of the blurred overview).

For implementing it in budgie, I don’t think it is possible (not as a simple port), for the simple reason that BmS uses a specific gnome-shell blur class, Shell.BlurEffect which is probably not available in budgie.