Blur Overview

by klangman

Score 15

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UUID: blur-overview@nailfarmer.nailfarmer.com

Last edited:

2 months ago 2025-04-12, 06:23

Last commit: [3ba7a1c1] Add/Update Hungarian translations (#865)

Allows you to blur, colorize and adjust the dimming of the overview's background (window selection screen)

README

Blur Overview

Allows you to blur, colorize and adjust the dimming of the overview's background (window selection screen)

What is the Overview?

The Overview shows you all the windows on the workspace and it can be activated in two ways:

By using the "Show the window selection screen" hotkey. By default the hotkey is: Ctrl+Alt+Down.
Moving the mouse pointer to the "Show all windows" Hot Corner. By default that is the top-left of the screen.

Requirements

For the version 2.0.0 changes (Gaussian blur effect and color blending) you need to be running Cinnamon 6.0 or better (i.e Mint 21.3 or better).

Features

Customize the Overview's background by:

Adding a Simple or an adjustable intensity Gaussian blur effect.
Adjust the dimming from 0 to 100%.
Blend a color into the background to give it a custom hue.

Installation

Right click on the cinnamon panel and click "System Settings"
Click on the "Extensions" icon under the "Preferences" category
Click the "Download" tab and then click the "Blur Overview" entry
Click the "Install" button on the right and then return to the "Manage" tab
Select the new "Blur Overview" entry and then click the "+" button at the bottom of the window
Use the "gears" icon next to the "Blur Overview" entry to open the setting window and setup the preferred behaviour

Feedback

You can add a comment here and you can submit a feature request or a problem report here: Spices Repo

Credits

The Gaussian effect code was borrowed from the Gnome Blur my shell extension by Aurélien Hamy.

CHANGELOG

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26 Comments

Kevin Langman-4 months ago

The "Blur Cinnamon" extension does everything this one does and more, so I recommend that you move to that one instead since that is where any future work will be done. https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/104

Kevin Langman-5 months ago

I have a new replacement for this extension called "Blur Cinnamon" that can customize more then just the Overview. I am in final testing now before pushing it to Cinnamon Spices. The new extension can apply all the same effects (Blurring/Dimming/Colorization) to Panels and the Expo as well as the Overlay. If anyone can help with the testing, please go to my GitHub (https://github.com/klangman/BlurCinnamon) follow the manual install instruction then let me know how it works for you. Thanks!!

Alessandro Teiji-5 months ago

I tried and looks all good! It cames better and so much beautiful. No issues. Thank you Kevin! Amazing work.

Kevin Langman-5 months ago

Thanks Alessandro. It's on Cinnamon Spaice now as well: https://cinnamon-spices.linuxmint.com/extensions/view/104

Michael Freeman-5 months ago

I just tried BlurCinnamon. That's beautiful! Works well! I haven't found any issues testing it. Is there any chance this same kind of blur effect could be applied to the panel menus as well?

Kevin Langman-5 months ago

I had thought about Menus.. They kinda stand out as odd when the panels are transparent with a blurred background. I haven't looked into it at all yet but I will at some point see that I can do there.

ironhak-5 months ago

Really nice!!! Should be there as default

Juan-Lutz-6 months ago

Thank you Kevin, the result is now really better. The effect is beautiful. I will keep it in my Cinnamon machine. Thank you again.

Kevin Langman-6 months ago

I ported the Blur-my-shell Guassian code to work in Cinnamon and used it here to produce a much more dramatic blur effect that also has an intensity control. Also added the ability to change the dimming color so that the dim control can blend any color of your choice into the background to give a custom hue to the background image under the Overview. These changes only apply when using Cinnamon 6.0 (Mint 21.3) or better. Let me know if you see any issues. Hope you guys like these enhancements!!

Juan-Lutz-6 months ago

Dear Kevin, thank you for your effort. In my case I have installed the extension and no effect is shown. In fact once installed and activated, the display ( blur effect) is not visible, even changing the % of Dimm background. Could you give some example of the effect on your screen or how to make it ‘visible’ or how it looks like? Thanks

Kevin Langman-6 months ago

Hopefully it's just a misunderstanding about what this extension does. The effect is seen when you activate the "Overview" which is activated when the "Show the window selection screen" hotkey (System Settings -> Keyboard -> Shortcuts(Tab), default: Ctrl + Alt + Down_Arrow) is used or when the "Show all windows" Hot Corner is used (default upper left). When the "Overview" is visible the background wall-paper beneath the windows is what the extension should effect. If you are in the overview and you don't see that the background wall-paper dimmed and slightly blurred according to the extensions settings, then that would be an issue with the extension. Here is a screenshot of the "Overview" (without the extension enabled) that I found with a google search: https://imgur.com/flameshot-screenshot-j9C7gyi Let me know if there is a real issue here or if it was just a misunderstanding of what this extension does. Thanks!

Juan-Lutz-6 months ago

OK now I got it. Thanks, it's actually too subtle and not the blur that many wish to have. In fact ‘Blur’ might be more part of a Theme than an effect.... (?) Or as in the case of KDE an additional setting when applying a transparency effect on windows. Again thanks for your feedback.

Juan-Lutz-6 months ago

More precisely, the effect that many are looking for is the one shown in this link (which seems to be still in experimental phase): https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxmint/comments/158x06b/experimental_cinnamon_blur_effect_in_mint_212/#lightbox

Kevin Langman-6 months ago

Yes, the Cinnamon built-in blur effect is very subtle and has no configuration options to adjust the effect at all as far as I can tell. I was looking into adding a custom gaussian blur effect as an option one day which would have a configurable intensity. Keep looking for an update, not sure when I will find the time to look into it, but it's on my list of things to investigate.

Kevin Langman-7 months ago

Looking at the code history it seems like the Blur effect was removed in 2021. I tested the blur effect and it seems to be working fine so I re-enabled the blue effect and added a config option to disable it for those who want just dimming.

owzim-7 months ago

Name and even screenshot totally misleading. The screenshot shows a blurred and darkened background, though the extension just darkens it. Why would you do that?

Kevin Langman-7 months ago

I don't believe the original code was blurring anything and it stopped working as the releases rolled by and the APIs changed underneath it.

Kevin Langman-9 months ago

Should be fixed now, but note that it never really blurred anything, it really only dimmed the background. By default Cinnamon dims the background by 40% (alpha of 0.4 defined by "workspace-overview-background-shade" in cinnamon.css) and with this extension you can adjust the dimming from 0% to 100%.

Kevin Langman-9 months ago

It looks like this never really blurred anything, it seems to only ever gave you control over how much it dimmed the overview background?