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Emerald is a nice window decorator, and I am using it with Compiz.

However, I see no option in the Emerald settings to make decorations translucent (i.e. blurred backgrounds), only transparent (see-through).

It would be nice to have the content behind the decorations blurred, especially for titlebars, because otherwise, when the text overlaps, it often looks confusing. You can sort of work around this with different colours, but then again, translucency is so nice!

Does such an option exist? If so, how can it be set?

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An option does exist in Compiz itself for blurring transparent parts of windows. To do this, you'll need the compizconfig-settings-manager Install compizconfig-settings-manager. (sometimes known as ccsm)

Then go under Effects > Blur Windows, and check the box for "Enable Blur Windows", ensuring that the "Alpha Blur" section's checkbox is checked as well.

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Thanks, this does exactly what I was looking for! However, performance takes a huge hit from this (rendering seems much, much slower). Any idea why? –  mydoghasworms Sep 5 '11 at 6:59
@mydoghasworms Unfortunately, I can't say. That question might be better posed to a Compiz developer. In general, though, I think fancier effects will always consume a bit more processing power; the trick is deciding what constitutes an acceptable tradeoff between performance and looks for you. –  Christopher Kyle Horton Sep 5 '11 at 17:59

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