Border color estimation doesn't work well with multiple layers of borders

[Nidkid]

Platform

Artix Linux

GPU, drivers, and screen setup

Asus Vivobook Laptop, built in screen
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3500U with Radeon Vega Mobile Gfx (8) @ 2.100GHz
GPU: AMD ATI Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series
I have mesa and vulkan drivers installed.

Environment

Herbstluftwm window manager

picom version

**Version:** vgit-b700a

Diagnostics

Extensions:

• Shape: Yes
• XRandR: Yes
• Present: Present

Misc:

• Use Overlay: No
  (Another compositor is already running)
• Config file used: /home/nidhish/.config/picom/picom.conf

Drivers (inaccurate):

AMDGPU, Radeon

Backend: glx

• Driver vendors:
• GLX: Mesa Project and SGI
• GL: AMD
• GL renderer: AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics (raven, LLVM 15.0.7, DRM 3.49, 6.2.2-artix1-1)
• Accelerated: 1

Backend: egl

• Driver vendors:
• EGL: Mesa Project
• EGL driver: radeonsi
• GL: AMD
• GL renderer: AMD Radeon Vega 8 Graphics (raven, LLVM 15.0.7, DRM 3.49, 6.2.2-artix1-1)

Expected behavior

Herbstluftwm's Window Frame colors remain consistent between No Compositor, GLX and Xrender

Current Behavior

no compositor

xrender

glx

No Compositor, Xrender retain the same window frame colors but GLX changes them entirely.

OpenGL trace

uploaded the apitrace to another site because it was 4mb long (upload will expire in 30 days from 03/09/23)
I only traced the GLX version.
https://easyupload.io/l5gjdp

[absolutelynothelix]

possibly related #285, i'll take a detailed look at your issue a bit later

[absolutelynothelix]

no compositor

how is your terminal transparent without a compositor?..

what's the behavior without a configuration file (--config=/dev/null)?

[Nidkid]

no compositor

how is your terminal transparent without a compositor?..

what's the behavior without a configuration file (--config=/dev/null)?

The terminal is URXVT which has a psuedo-transparency setting through copying the wallpaper and applying a tint to it.

heres a screenshot with the --config=/dev/null flag

It appears indistinguishable from not running picom at all.

[absolutelynothelix]

do i understand correctly that the only issue with messed colors is windows' borders?

ah, --config=/dev/null sets backend to xrender since it's the default one. you may want to test --config=/dev/null --backend=glx as well.

[Nidkid]

do i understand correctly that the only issue with messed colors is windows' borders?

Yes that's the primary issue as far as I've noticed

ah, --config=/dev/null sets backend to xrender since it's the default one. you may want to test --config=/dev/null --backend=glx as well.

surprisingly this seems to work correctly.

Here's my config, which is only very lightly changed from the default. I think turning off vsync is the only change I made in General Settings, and just have a few parameters enabled in the other sections.

config

#################################
#             Shadows           #
#################################


# Enabled client-side shadows on windows. Note desktop windows
# (windows with '_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP') never get shadow,
# unless explicitly requested using the wintypes option.
#
# shadow = false
shadow = true;

# The blur radius for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to 12)
#shadow-radius = 22.75;
shadow-radius = 22.75

# The opacity of shadows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.75)
 shadow-opacity = .88
 #shadow-opacity = .92

# The left offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-x = -15
#shadow-offset-x = -15.9; #r
#shadow-offset-x = -21.9; #cen
shadow-offset-x = -20.76; #soft r

# The top offset for shadows, in pixels. (defaults to -15)
# shadow-offset-y = -15
#shadow-offset-y = -17.9; #r
shadow-offset-y = -21.3; #cen

# Red color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-red = 0

# Green color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-green = 0

# Blue color value of shadow (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0).
# shadow-blue = 0

# Hex string color value of shadow (#000000 - #FFFFFF, defaults to #000000). This option will override options set shadow-(red/green/blue)
# shadow-color = "#000000"

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow.
#
# examples:
#   shadow-exclude = "n:e:Notification";
#
# shadow-exclude = []
shadow-exclude = [
  "name = 'xfce4-notifyd'",
#  "name = 'xfce4-panel'",
#  "class_g = 'Conky'",
#  "class_g ?= 'xfce4-notifyd'",
#  "class_g = 'Cairo-clock'",
  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
];

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should have no shadow painted over, such as a dock window.
# clip-shadow-above = []

# Specify a X geometry that describes the region in which shadow should not
# be painted in, such as a dock window region. Use
#    shadow-exclude-reg = "x10+0+0"
# for example, if the 10 pixels on the bottom of the screen should not have shadows painted on.
#
# shadow-exclude-reg = ""

# Crop shadow of a window fully on a particular Xinerama screen to the screen.
# xinerama-shadow-crop = false


#################################
#           Fading              #
#################################


# Fade windows in/out when opening/closing and when opacity changes,
#  unless no-fading-openclose is used.
#fading = false
fading = true;

# Opacity change between steps while fading in. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.028)
# fade-in-step = 0.028

# Opacity change between steps while fading out. (0.01 - 1.0, defaults to 0.03)
# fade-out-step = 0.03

# The time between steps in fade step, in milliseconds. (> 0, defaults to 10)
#fade-in-step = 0.03;
#fade-out-step = 0.03;
#fade-delta = 5.2

fade-in-step = 0.23;
fade-out-step = 0.23;
fade-delta = 37

#fade-in-step = 0.03;
#fade-out-step = 0.03;
#fade-delta = 5.2
#fade-in-step = 0.03;
#fade-out-step = 0.03;
#fade-delta = 5.2


# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should not be faded.
# fade-exclude = []

# Do not fade on window open/close.
# no-fading-openclose = false

# Do not fade destroyed ARGB windows with WM frame. Workaround of bugs in Openbox, Fluxbox, etc.
# no-fading-destroyed-argb = false


#################################
#   Transparency / Opacity      #
#################################


# Opacity of inactive windows. (0.1 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
# inactive-opacity = 1
#inactive-opacity = .97895

#inactive-opacity = .94
#inactive-opacity = .939;

#inactive-opacity = .98


#inactive-opacity = .798
inactive-opacity = .83
#inactive-opacity = .728

# Opacity of window titlebars and borders. (0.1 - 1.0, disabled by default)
# frame-opacity = .994

# Let inactive opacity set by -i override the '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' values of windows.
# inactive-opacity-override = true
#inactive-opacity-override = false;

# Default opacity for active windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 1.0)
# active-opacity = 1.0

# Dim inactive windows. (0.0 - 1.0, defaults to 0.0)
#inactive-dim = .1543
#inactive-dim = .10456
#inactive-dim = 0.0864
#inactive-dim = .1694
#inactive-dim = .0377
inactive-dim = .0354
#inactive-dim = .03
#inactive-dim = .0006

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should never be considered focused.
# focus-exclude = []
#focus-exclude = [ "xfce4-notifyd" ];

# Use fixed inactive dim value, instead of adjusting according to window opacity.
# inactive-dim-fixed = 1.0

# Specify a list of opacity rules, in the format `PERCENT:PATTERN`,
# like `50:name *= "Firefox"`. picom-trans is recommended over this.
# Note we don't make any guarantee about possible conflicts with other
# programs that set '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on frame or client windows.
# example:
#    opacity-rule = [ "80:class_g = 'URxvt'" ];
#
# opacity-rule = [ "56:name = 'xfce4-notifyd'" ]


#################################
#           Corners             #
#################################

# Sets the radius of rounded window corners. When > 0, the compositor will
# round the corners of windows. Does not interact well with
# `transparent-clipping`.
#corner-radius = 7.1
corner-radius = 8.8

# Exclude conditions for rounded corners.
rounded-corners-exclude = [
  "window_type = 'dock'",
  "window_type = 'desktop'"
];


#################################
#     Background-Blurring       #
#################################


# MUST USE GLX, but COMPATIBILITY ISSUES WITH HLWM 

# Parameters for background blurring, see the *BLUR* section for more information.
#blur-background = true
#blur-method = "kernel"
# blur-size = 6
#
# blur-deviation = false
#
#blur-strength = 30

# Blur background of semi-transparent / ARGB windows.
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior.
# The name of the switch may change without prior notifications.
#

# Blur background of windows when the window frame is not opaque.
# Implies:
#    blur-background
# Bad in performance, with driver-dependent behavior. The name may change.
#
# blur-background-frame = false


# Use fixed blur strength rather than adjusting according to window opacity.
# blur-background-fixed = fix


# Specify the blur convolution kernel, with the following format:
# example:
#   blur-kern = "5,5,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1";
#
# blur-kern = ""
#blur-kern = "7x7box";


# Exclude conditions for background blur.
# blur-background-exclude = []
#blur-background-exclude = [
#  "window_type = 'dock'",
#  "window_type = 'desktop'",
#  "_GTK_FRAME_EXTENTS@:c"
#];

#################################
#       General Settings        #
#################################

# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the man page for more details.
# dbus = true

# Daemonize process. Fork to background after initialization. Causes issues with certain (badly-written) drivers.
# daemon = false

# Specify the backend to use: `xrender`, `glx`, or `xr_glx_hybrid`.
# `xrender` is the default one.
#
#backend = "glx"
#invert-color-include = false
backend = "xrender";

# Enable/disable VSync.
 vsync = false
#vsync = true;

# Enable remote control via D-Bus. See the *D-BUS API* section below for more details.
# dbus = false

# Try to detect WM windows (a non-override-redirect window with no
# child that has 'WM_STATE') and mark them as active.
#
# mark-wmwin-focused = false
mark-wmwin-focused = true;

# Mark override-redirect windows that doesn't have a child window with 'WM_STATE' focused.
# mark-ovredir-focused = false
mark-ovredir-focused = true;

# Try to detect windows with rounded corners and don't consider them
# shaped windows. The accuracy is not very high, unfortunately.
#
# detect-rounded-corners = false
#detect-rounded-corners = true;

# Detect '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' on client windows, useful for window managers
# not passing '_NET_WM_WINDOW_OPACITY' of client windows to frame windows.
#
 detect-client-opacity = false
#detect-client-opacity = true;

# Use EWMH '_NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW' to determine currently focused window,
# rather than listening to 'FocusIn'/'FocusOut' event. Might have more accuracy,
# provided that the WM supports it.
#
# use-ewmh-active-win = false

# Unredirect all windows if a full-screen opaque window is detected,
# to maximize performance for full-screen windows. Known to cause flickering
# when redirecting/unredirecting windows.
#
# unredir-if-possible = false

# Delay before unredirecting the window, in milliseconds. Defaults to 0.
# unredir-if-possible-delay = 0

# Conditions of windows that shouldn't be considered full-screen for unredirecting screen.
# unredir-if-possible-exclude = []

# Use 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' to group windows, and consider windows
# in the same group focused at the same time.
#
# detect-transient = false
detect-transient = true;

# Use 'WM_CLIENT_LEADER' to group windows, and consider windows in the same
# group focused at the same time. This usually means windows from the same application
# will be considered focused or unfocused at the same time.
# 'WM_TRANSIENT_FOR' has higher priority if detect-transient is enabled, too.
#
# detect-client-leader = false

# Resize damaged region by a specific number of pixels.
# A positive value enlarges it while a negative one shrinks it.
# If the value is positive, those additional pixels will not be actually painted
# to screen, only used in blur calculation, and such. (Due to technical limitations,
# with use-damage, those pixels will still be incorrectly painted to screen.)
# Primarily used to fix the line corruption issues of blur,
# in which case you should use the blur radius value here
# (e.g. with a 3x3 kernel, you should use `--resize-damage 1`,
# with a 5x5 one you use `--resize-damage 2`, and so on).
# May or may not work with *--glx-no-stencil*. Shrinking doesn't function correctly.
#
# resize-damage = 1

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should be painted with inverted color.
# Resource-hogging, and is not well tested.
#
# invert-color-include = []

# GLX backend: Avoid using stencil buffer, useful if you don't have a stencil buffer.
# Might cause incorrect opacity when rendering transparent content (but never
# practically happened) and may not work with blur-background.
# My tests show a 15% performance boost. Recommended.
#
glx-no-stencil = true;

# GLX backend: Avoid rebinding pixmap on window damage.
# Probably could improve performance on rapid window content changes,
# but is known to break things on some drivers (LLVMpipe, xf86-video-intel, etc.).
# Recommended if it works.
#
# glx-no-rebind-pixmap = false

# Disable the use of damage information.
# This cause the whole screen to be redrawn every time, instead of the part of the screen
# has actually changed. Potentially degrades the performance, but might fix some artifacts.
# The opposing option is use-damage
#
# no-use-damage = false
use-damage = true;

# Use X Sync fence to sync clients' draw calls, to make sure all draw
# calls are finished before picom starts drawing. Needed on nvidia-drivers
# with GLX backend for some users.
#
# xrender-sync-fence = false

# GLX backend: Use specified GLSL fragment shader for rendering window
# contents. Read the man page for a detailed explanation of the interface.
#
# window-shader-fg = "default"

# Use rules to set per-window shaders. Syntax is SHADER_PATH:PATTERN, similar
# to opacity-rule. SHADER_PATH can be "default". This overrides window-shader-fg.
#
# window-shader-fg-rule = [
#   "my_shader.frag:window_type != 'dock'"
# ]

# Force all windows to be painted with blending. Useful if you
# have a glx-fshader-win that could turn opaque pixels transparent.
#
# force-win-blend = false

# Do not use EWMH to detect fullscreen windows.
# Reverts to checking if a window is fullscreen based only on its size and coordinates.
#
# no-ewmh-fullscreen = false

# Dimming bright windows so their brightness doesn't exceed this set value.
# Brightness of a window is estimated by averaging all pixels in the window,
# so this could comes with a performance hit.
# Setting this to 1.0 disables this behaviour. Requires --use-damage to be disabled. (default: 1.0)
#
# max-brightness = 1.0

# Make transparent windows clip other windows like non-transparent windows do,
# instead of blending on top of them.
#
# transparent-clipping = false

# Specify a list of conditions of windows that should never have transparent
# clipping applied. Useful for screenshot tools, where you need to be able to
# see through transparent parts of the window.
#
# transparent-clipping-exclude = []

# Set the log level. Possible values are:
#  "trace", "debug", "info", "warn", "error"
# in increasing level of importance. Case doesn't matter.
# If using the "TRACE" log level, it's better to log into a file
# using *--log-file*, since it can generate a huge stream of logs.
#
# log-level = "debug"
log-level = "warn";

# Set the log file.
# If *--log-file* is never specified, logs will be written to stderr.
# Otherwise, logs will to written to the given file, though some of the early
# logs might still be written to the stderr.
# When setting this option from the config file, it is recommended to use an absolute path.
#
# log-file = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Show all X errors (for debugging)
# show-all-xerrors = false

# Write process ID to a file.
# write-pid-path = "/path/to/your/log/file"

# Window type settings
#
# 'WINDOW_TYPE' is one of the 15 window types defined in EWMH standard:
#     "unknown", "desktop", "dock", "toolbar", "menu", "utility",
#     "splash", "dialog", "normal", "dropdown_menu", "popup_menu",
#     "tooltip", "notification", "combo", and "dnd".
#
# Following per window-type options are available: ::
#
#   fade, shadow:::
#     Controls window-type-specific shadow and fade settings.
#
#   opacity:::
#     Controls default opacity of the window type.
#
#   focus:::
#     Controls whether the window of this type is to be always considered focused.
#     (By default, all window types except "normal" and "dialog" has this on.)
#
#   full-shadow:::
#     Controls whether shadow is drawn under the parts of the window that you
#     normally won't be able to see. Useful when the window has parts of it
#     transparent, and you want shadows in those areas.
#
#   clip-shadow-above:::
#     Controls whether shadows that would have been drawn above the window should
#     be clipped. Useful for dock windows that should have no shadow painted on top.
#
#   redir-ignore:::
#     Controls whether this type of windows should cause screen to become
#     redirected again after been unredirected. If you have unredir-if-possible
#     set, and doesn't want certain window to cause unnecessary screen redirection,
#     you can set this to `true`.
#
#wintypes:
#{
#  tooltip = { fade = false; shadow = true; opacity = 0.75; focus = true; full-shadow = false; };
#  dock = { shadow = false; clip-shadow-above = false; }
#  dnd = { shadow = false; }
#  popup_menu = { opacity = 0.8; }
#  dropdown_menu = { opacity = 0.8; }
#};

[absolutelynothelix]

can you track down the issue to a particular option? or, maybe, a combination of options. i suspect it may be the frame-opacity one. you may, for example, comment out half of the config to see which half contains the option that causes the issue and them comment a quarter of the config, etc.

[Nidkid]

I was able to narrow it down. Disabling corner-radius and nothing else normalizes the window frames, so the issue is specifically with corner-radius it seems.

[absolutelynothelix]

hm, i was working with rounded corners a few days ago (i didn’t break it, i swear!) and there is a mechanism that detects borders (width and color) and rounds them as well. looking at your screenshots: do you have double borders set up?

[Nidkid]

In HerbstluftWM there are layers of borders. HLWM distinguishes between frames (ie containers on the screen for several windows) and the windows themselves.

I have all frame borders disabled.

For windows I believe I have 3 enabled on all the windows. Border (a “container” border for the other 2), an inner border, and an outer border. Inner border draws from the inner edge of the container border out, and outer border draws from the outer edge of the container border in. Neither can surpass the boundaries of the container border and all 3 have their own colors.

The color of borders shifts between active and inactive windows. I believe inactive windows don’t have outer borders enabled.

[Nidkid]

Edit: the inactive windows don’t have inner borders enabled, and both active and inactive windows share the same parameters for the container border

[tryone144]

Just a wild guess, but if memory serves me correctly, the glx backend gets one of the border pixels as the border color (which is different to the xrender backend) for drawing the rounded overlay part. If you use a bevel effect with three different border colors it might only use the outermost color to draw the whole border...
Take this with a grain of salt though, as I can't check this right now.

[absolutelynothelix]

@Nidkid, i believe that if you configure your wm to have a single border (the "container" you mentioned above), i.e. yellowish for active windows and black for inactive windows, the corner-radius option will work properly?

[Nidkid]

Alright, I just checked and it does work in the way you described. Changing the color of the outermost ring affects the whole border, so removing the thin strip of dark blue around the yellow allowed the whole border to become yellow. Ideally though, I would eventually want to utilize the layers provided to me by my window manager for a cleaner framing effect.

[Nidkid]

There is also still a small weird effect with the inactive borders. The thin inner border's color changes to a darker blue instead of being eliminated entirely.

inactive windows normal:

inactive windows glx: