Consider merging the refraction / liquid glass PR?

[MoltenMonster]

I didn't make the PR and idk if I would want to work on it, so I'm just asking rather than actually making the PR.

taj-ny#239 adds the option for an refraction effect like iOS' Liquid Glass effect.

Another forceblur forked merged it btw: LightWayUp#1

[D3SOX]

Just to set your expectations right: As far as I know (xarblu correct me if I'm wrong) it isn't a simple merge because this effect was rebased to be closer in line with the current upstream blur. So there must be some work done to make it function properly and it's not a simple matter of applying this patch.

And citing from the README:

You may notice these are less features than the original Better Blur. This is intentional - this project focusses on bringing the KWin blur to arbitrary windows and nothing else.

It sounds like either you or someone else would need to fork the project and add it. But let’s wait for xarblu’s answer on this.

[xarblu]

Just to set your expectations right: As far as I know (xarblu correct me if I'm wrong) it isn't a simple merge because this effect was rebased to be closer in line with the current upstream blur. So there must be some work done to make it function properly and it's not a simple matter of applying this patch.

Yea, it's a bit more involved than that.

My opinion on this is fairly similar to #16 (comment).

In short refraction was removed because a) I don't use and b) it broke after porting to the Plasma 6.5 blur.
Although a re-implementation of refraction should be simpler than a re-implementation of static blur (because refraction would essentially just be a replacement for the final contrast pass in BlurEfect::blur() - but that'd still mean implementing new refraction pass shaders for rounded/non-rounded corners matching the contrast pass).

[D3SOX]

I personally don't use it either. But I’m tagging @DaddelZeit and @iGerman00 here, since they worked on the refraction for the old forceblur. Maybe they can help with the reimplementation. I hope this is okay and not too intrusive.

[iGerman00]

I mostly just worked on the GLSL and visual part of it, not very familiar with the actual kwin effect. Really do want to see this merged somewhere, though, I’ve been rocking my own PR for months and it’s really pretty.

[xarblu]

Well I was bored and got a little carried away - Refraction is now re-implemented and back in main as an alternative to the default contrast pass :)

[iGerman00]

Awesome! Did you use my 239 PR with the new concave mode?

[xarblu]

I think so yea - I used the repo linked in the 1st comment as a reference which had it merged afaik. (In hindsight I should've just used the repo the PR is based on but oh well)

[D3SOX]

I just tried the feature (for the first time) and I gotta say it's actually a cool effect. I like it especially with the concave mode. For it to be visible I had to turn down my blur strength a lot because I used to have it almost on the max setting.

[DaddelZeit]

Well I was bored and got a little carried away - Refraction is now re-implemented and back in main as an alternative to the default contrast pass :)

Hell yeah, thank you :)

[xarblu]

Well since everyone seems to be happy with the re-implementation so far I'm going to close this as completed :)