Andrew Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 NOTE!! From Alfred 2.4, the blur setting is in Alfred's Appearance > Options. You won't need to use the defaults writes, but it's still marked as experimental. I plan on implementing the native Yosemite blur at some point and make this an official feature. This is and always will be a hack, but I'm adding a defaults write preferences item to set the background blur of a window. This will allow you to have nice transparent themes but still readable over busy backgrounds. There are a few important caveats with this: It uses a private OS X API which means it may stop working at any point outside of my control I may take this feature out if it causes general instability and will ignore any moans of "put it back" It disables the 'Fade in Alfred Window' option because these don't play nice together It slows things down lots on slower Macs This will work in OS X 10.9 Mavericks from Alfred 2.3 onwards! To use this hack, quit Alfred and his preferences then type this into Terminal: OS X 10.9 Mavericks: defaults write com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2 experimentalBlur -int 5 ... the value can be anywhere from 1 to 15 for different blur radius levels, set to 0 to disable. OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and below: defaults write com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2 experimentalBlur -float 3.0 ... the value can be anywhere from 1.0 to 5.0 for different blur intensity levels, set to 0.0 to disable. Here is what you should see: Cheers, Andrew YtseJam, trenchers1, CarlosNZ and 6 others 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonB Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 Looks great, can't wait to try this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted January 21, 2013 Author Share Posted January 21, 2013 This little hack is now available in b78! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twinpeaks Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 Thanks, I enjoyed the caveat that the hack might be removed and all "moans" for re-instatment will be ignored. I guess at this point a lot of our nitpicking requests sound like moans, lol. Seriously though, if there was a most dedicated developer of the year award it would go to you and Vero, not even a close runner-up. Thank you for your unwavering dedication to Alfred and it's users. We truly appreciate all the time you put in to development and support no matter how much we "moan" for this and that! I may take this feature out if it causes general instability and will ignore any moans of "put it back" CarlosNZ, Tyler Eich, untidey and 1 other 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Eich Posted January 21, 2013 Share Posted January 21, 2013 Seriously though, if there was a most dedicated developer of the year award it would go to you and Vero, not even a close runner-up. Thank you for your unwavering dedication to Alfred and it's users. We truly appreciate all the time you put in to development and support no matter how much we "moan" for this and that! I second that! Alfred's developers set the bar VERY high; I can't stand half-baked software from other developers since I started using Alfred CarlosNZ 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted January 21, 2013 Author Share Posted January 21, 2013 Cheers chaps, I really appreciate you saying that untidey and Tyler Eich 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CarlosNZ Posted January 22, 2013 Share Posted January 22, 2013 And a cheeky little workflow to go with it. http://cl.ly/MLMP (Keyword: blur) bfolberth 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artur Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Why this has stay as a hack ? iTerm2 has a switch for the background blur. I'm just curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
judas Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 This is very well implemented in the Terminal app (yes...I know!) Actually, that theme editor "might" give you an idea or two, it is very comprehensive! http://cl.ly/MPX2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted January 24, 2013 Author Share Posted January 24, 2013 Why this has stay as a hack ? iTerm2 has a switch for the background blur. I'm just curious. Because of the reasons I gave in the original post... mostly it's private api and could be taken away at any point. I care if suddenly Alfred crashes on trying to show the window because a private API has moved, iTerm2 may not care. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Artur Posted January 24, 2013 Share Posted January 24, 2013 Cool. Thanks. I'm happy with using it as a hack Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ngocphamm Posted February 19, 2013 Share Posted February 19, 2013 Not sure if it's a "bug" but I have to quit Alfred and start him again if I want to disable the blur effect Enabling didn't require restart, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmartins Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 Really cool, unfortunately cant get it to work, both with the terminal command nor with the workflow made available in this topic :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tyler Eich Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 Really cool, unfortunately cant get it to work, both with the terminal command nor with the workflow made available in this topic :-( Did you restart Alfred? It only worked for me when I restarted Alfred Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmartins Posted March 14, 2013 Share Posted March 14, 2013 Yes, i've restarted but it only began working when i changed theme. Working now :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roza Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 same here. doesn't work for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justmytwospence Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Super cool, but it doesn't work for me either, after I quit and restart Alfred, change the theme, or anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Posted March 15, 2013 Author Share Posted March 15, 2013 You may need to quit Alfred before typing that into terminal as Alfred syncs his prefs on quitting so may overwrite the change you made. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YtseJam Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Hmm, this fails for me as well... :/ OS X 10.8.3 Alfred v2 official release build 1. Quit Alfred 2.1. Launched Terminal 2.2. Executed: defaults write com.runningwithcrayons.Alfred-2 experimentalBlur -float 3.0 3. Launched Alfred Still looks as before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Works fine for me. To those having trouble, make sure to have set the opacity <100% if you haven't done so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YtseJam Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Works fine for me. To those having trouble, make sure to have set the opacity <100% if you haven't done so. What do you mean by that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 What do you mean by that? In your theme pref, click to change the alfred background colour and there should be option to change opacity Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YtseJam Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 (edited) Can you attach a screen shot showing the opacity setting? I don't see it anywhere... Edit: okay, I see... this requires some theme editing know-how. Must say the controls are very not user-friendly. Trying to get the hang of it. Edited March 15, 2013 by YtseJam Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
James Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 i'm on my ipad but it should be there when you double click to change background color Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
YtseJam Posted March 15, 2013 Share Posted March 15, 2013 Or single-tap it in my case. Okay, got the hang of it. The problem was indeed the need for opacity in my theme. Now that I've experimented... I've come to this conclusion: Andrew, could you please share the theme you showed in the opening post? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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