None of the windows have drop shadows

blobchapeau

Hello! This is my first time posting on the forum.
Just to begin, I started using Vivaldi on Windows, and had a wonderful time with it there. However, when I switched to Linux, some problems started popping up.
One of these problems is that none of the windows for Vivaldi, not the main window nor the settings window, have any drop shadows. This seems really strange, as my time with Vivaldi on Windows didn't have this issue.
I'm using openSUSE Tumbleweed with Plasma. All of my other windows do have shadows behind them, but nothing from Vivaldi.
Here's a screenshot showing Kate and the settings window side by side:
.

npro

@blobchapeau Hi. Welcome.
Go to Settings -> Appearance and enable Native Window (restart the browser) to use the normal window manager, then you 'll see the drop shadows (and anything else related to your OS theme basically).

(A little background story or... small rant if you prefer. That's the job of the window manager, but the modern "universal" crap app plague, which wants everything to look or work as a phone app or the same in any platform -in order to maximize profit- is not using it or is hiding it, adding instead "artificial" buttons (and removing title bars, or even not providing buttons at all, etc), like those you see in Vivaldi, with CSD (Client-side decorations) -and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets)-. GTK (which Vivaldi also uses) "sponsored" by Canonical (Ubuntu) started this stupid trend as always [1].) , because they (Canonical) wanted to be the equivalent of Microsoft Windows 8 for Linux, running the same ugly and bulky "Metro-style" apps on (their later abandoned) phones/tablets and on the Desktop [2], so everyone has to suffer from it. GNOME then (being "the tablet DE") were so jealous of that, so they joined them and surpassed them by going full-****** ever since, so here we are.)

voyager1sun

I usually like native windows better, but in this case the click target for tabs is much smaller when they are not on top of the window (but under the titlebar).
Vivialdi picking up on system shadows / rounding / titlebar buttons would be the best option

enc0re

I'm wondering if there is some work in progress regarding missing shadows. Shadows are missing only on KDE environment. In Gnome they works fine.

antekone

I'm also using it on KDE, and I'm also missing drop shadows. I can enable "native window", but it enables the title bar, and I prefer to have no title bar. When I enable "native window" and I disable title bar manually, shadows disappear again.

I also don't have shadows under context menus. I use light theme, and it doesn't look very well. Can't see the boundaries of context menus without the shadow nor borders in light themes.

edwardp

Could it be the KDE theme?

I'm using openSUSE and have the window shadowing. This is the bottom of the Settings window:

enc0re

@edwardp Interesting. Which theme are you using? Default openSUSE? I think I will make VM with openSUSE and test.

On Debian/Ubuntu I'm using default Breeze light/dark.

edwardp

@enc0re Global Theme shows Breeze, but I am using the default openSUSE desktop wallpaper.

enc0re

@edwardp I just installed Leap 15.5 from DVD in VMware, made update. And don't have window shadows. Neither under X11, neither under Wayland, neither using openSUSE theme, neither using Breeze theme. I don't understand why and how it works for you.

edwardp

@enc0re I have both Tumbleweed and Slowroll installed and have the window shadowing with both.

Leap could be different, but I would think the themes ought to be the same across all of the openSUSE variants.

npro

@enc0re I think you need to ask him very specifically if he has the option for native window on and best to show you a full screenshot of the browser if he hasn't already.

enc0re

@npro Yeah sure.

@edwardp Please show the full screenshot of browser.

edwardp

@enc0re The browser has nothing to do with the shadowing.

This is the top and bottom of a Konsole window, also showing the shadowing:

Window Decorations is also set to Breeze, it displays the window shadowing:

enc0re

@edwardp You completelly misunderstood point here. We are talking about missing shadows on Vivaldi app, not on other KDE apps.

Of course all other KDE applications have visible shadows. Only Vivaldi doesn't have shadows, but only on KDE environemnt. Under GNOME they are visible.

Please make a screenshot of Vivaldi window, not Konsole, KDE Settings or any other application.

edit:

edwardp

There is shadowing (changed to a lighter desktop wallpaper, so it can be seen).

andrejpetrovic

I have been frustrated by this for a while, but it's not just Vivaldi and I don't think there's much that Vivaldi could (or should) do. According to the discussion here, in KDE, you can't get shadows without bring along the whole title bar and all other decorations. That's why if you enable the native window style in Vivaldi, you get the drop shadow as well as the native titlebar and buttons.

There is a manual workaround you can set on an app-by-app basis (instructions for Plasma 6, for Plasma 5 it should be similar). It works for other programs that suffer from this too (VSCode and Obsidian in my case):

In KDE Settings, go to Appearance & Style → Colors & Themes → Window Decorations → Click the edit button (pencil) on in the corner of Breeze → Window-Specific Overrides tab → Add. Click "Detect Window Properties" and then the Vivaldi window. Check "Hide window title bar" and "Border Size" and select "No Border" and then OK. In Plasma 6, I also found it necessary to go to the "Shadows and Outlines" tab in the Breeze settings window and set "Outline intensity" to Off.
Back in the main KDE Settings menu, go to Apps & Windows → Window Management → Window Rules. Click "Add New", then "Detect Window Properties" and select the Vivaldi window. Choose "Window class (application)" as the window matching rule. Next, click "Add Property" at the bottom, select for "No titlebar and frame", then choose "Force" and "No" for that new entry. Apply and all should look well.

This problem is hard to search for online so I hope by writing it here it helps someone. I was hoping Plasma 6 would fix this but I guess not.

npro

@andrejpetrovic said in None of the windows have drop shadows:

have been frustrated by this for a while, but it's not just Vivaldi and I don't think there's much that Vivaldi could (or should) do. According to the discussion here, in KDE, you can't get shadows without bring along the whole title bar and all other decorations. That's why if you enable the native window style in Vivaldi, you get the drop shadow as well as the native titlebar and buttons.

I was hoping Plasma 6 would fix this but I guess not.

That's not KDE's problem but stupid "Electron & Electron-like" programs', written with the damn "web-technologies" which require stupid CSD "hacks" to display fake buttons, fake title-bars, shadows, etc, see my first post for the story behind it.

In this case Vivaldi using an "electron-like" UI should provide those shadows itself if not run with the native window, it's simple as that.

enc0re

@edwardp You are using "Native window". You could wrote that earlier. Issue is with missing shadows while not using "Native window".

enc0re

This post is deleted!

luetage

@npro For a browser and email programs Electron is less of an offense. Other electron apps load the engine just for the UI, in Vivaldi the engine is needed for webpage and mail rendering. We can’t know whether Vivaldi would have made it by writing native apps, the team was very small in the beginning. Maybe a Linux version would have taken years for a release. The web UI has its upsides too, for example the casual way in which we can mod the application.