# Desktop Effects

&Mike.McBride; &Mike.McBride.mail;
2009-02-10
&kde; 4.2
KDE
KControl
desktop
effects

## Desktop Effects

### Introduction

This module is used to configure desktop effects for &kde;.

This panel is divided into four tabs: General, Screen Edges, All Effects and Advanced.

#### General tab

At the top of this tab is a checkbox labeled Enable desktop effects. If there is no mark in front of this checkbox, then all visual effects of this panel are disabled. To edit any of these effects, simply place a mark in this checkbox.

Below that checkbox there are some common settings for the desktop effects like improved window management, shadows, various animations, effects for desktop and window switching and the animation speed.

#### Screen Edges tab

Active screen edges allow you to activate effects by pushing your mouse cursor against the edge of the screen. Here you can configure which effect will get activated on each edge and corner of the screen.

Click with any mouse button onto a square and select an effect in the context menu. Edges with a green square have already an attached effect, a red colored square indicates that no effect is selected for this edge.

If you are looking for the setting to enable switching of desktops by pushing your mouse cursor against the edge of the screen you can find it in the settings module Window Behavior on the Advanced tab in the section Active Desktop Borders.

#### All Effects tab

The main part of this page is a list of all available effects grouped by Accessibility, Appearance, Candy, Focus and Tools. Use the incremental search bar above the list window to find items in the list.

Check an effect in the list to enable it. Display the About dialog by clicking the info button at the right side of the list item. Some effects have settings options, in this case there is a tool button at the left of the info button. Click it to open a configuration dialog.

#### Advanced tab

On this tab you can select a Compositing type (OpenGL or XRender) and set some options for the selected type.