Features
Better Blur DX extends KWin’s blur capabilities with powerful customization options and fixes for long-standing issues. Here’s everything the effect offers.Core Features
Force Blur
Apply blur to any window regardless of whether the application supports transparency. Use window class matching with regex support.
Adjustable Contrast Pass
Fine-tune brightness, contrast, and saturation of blurred backgrounds. Force your settings even when windows provide their own values.
Corner Radius
Round the corners of blur regions to match modern window designs and eliminate the “korners” bug where square blur bleeds out.
Refraction
Use refraction effects as an alternative to the standard contrast pass for unique visual styles (re-implemented in v2.2.0).
Blur Customization
Blur Strength
Control how “sharp” or “soft” your blurred backgrounds appear. This works identically to the default KWin blur setting but integrates with Better Blur DX’s advanced features.Noise Strength
Adjust the intensity of noise applied to blurred backgrounds. Noise helps hide banding artifacts that can appear in smooth gradients, especially on lower-end displays.Contrast Pass Parameters
Better Blur DX gives you full control over the contrast pass applied to blurred regions:- Brightness - Make blurred backgrounds lighter or darker
- Saturation - Increase or decrease color intensity
- Contrast - Adjust the difference between light and dark areas
By default, Better Blur DX respects contrast parameters provided by windows themselves (like Plasma panels). Enable “Force Contrast Parameters” to override window-provided values with your own settings.
Force Blur Options
Window Class Matching
Specify which windows should receive forced blur using window classes. Better Blur DX supports:- Exact matching - Match specific window classes
- Regular expressions (added in v2.1.0) - Use regex patterns for flexible matching
- Invert matching - Blur all windows except those matching your list
qdbus org.kde.KWin /KWin org.kde.KWin.queryWindowInfo(click the target window)- Right-click titlebar → More Options → Configure Special Window/Application Settings
Decoration Blurring
Enable “Blur window decorations as well” to apply blur to window borders and titlebars. This is essential for decorations that don’t natively support blur and will override blur regions specified by the decoration.Menu and Dock Blurring
By default, Better Blur DX filters out menus and docks from blur processing. Enable these options to allow blur on:- Application menus and context menus
- Desktop docks and panels
Enabling these options only allows menus/docks to be blurred. You still need to add them to your force blur window classes or enable “Blur all except matching”.
Bug Fixes
Better Blur DX includes fixes for several KWin blur bugs that haven’t been patched upstream:Blur Disappearing During Animations
The effect includes improved “blur while transformed” behavior that maintains consistent blur during window transformations. As of v2.1.0, blur is explicitly disabled during move/resize, allowed to transform cleanly, then reapplied with a smooth fade transition.Transparent Color Schemes
Fixes compatibility issues between transparent color schemes (like Alpha) and the Breeze application style.Opacity Rule Blurring
Resolves issues where windows with opacity less than 1.0 (set via KWin rules) wouldn’t blur correctly.Contrast Pass Artifacts
Eliminates visual artifacts that appeared around screen edges in the contrast pass.False Region Overwriting
Fixed in v2.2.0 - Prevents empty force-blur regions from overwriting legitimate blur regions, which caused decorations to lose their blur.X11 Property Parsing on Wayland
Fixed in v2.1.0 - The Wayland build now correctly respects blur requests from X11 clients running under XWayland.Compatibility
Supported Plasma Versions
Better Blur DX is designed to work with the current stable version of Plasma. Older versions receive minimal testing.
- Plasma 6.5
- Plasma 6.6
Display Server Support
- Wayland - Fully supported, actively tested
- X11 - Deprecated, minimal testing, must be explicitly enabled at build time
Effect Compatibility
Better Blur DX has known incompatibilities with certain KWin effects:Performance Characteristics
Better Blur DX can be resource-intensive, particularly with:- Multiple open windows
- Large blur strength values
- High-resolution displays
- Lower-end GPUs
Intel GPUs use software cursor by default due to a known kernel driver bug. This affects cursor performance but is a workaround for visual corruption issues.
Notable Changes from Better Blur
If you’re migrating from the original Better Blur (by taj-ny), be aware of these breaking changes introduced in Better Blur DX 2.0.0:- Config group renamed - You’ll need to reconfigure your settings
- Static blur removed - Maintenance complexity outweighed benefits
- Refraction initially removed - Re-implemented in v2.2.0 as an alternative to the contrast pass
- Auto-detect opacity behavior - No longer needs manual configuration
What’s Missing?
Compared to the original Better Blur, Better Blur DX currently lacks:- Static Blur - Removed in v2.0.0, not planned for re-implementation
Next Steps
Explore detailed documentation for specific features:Force Blur Guide
Complete guide to force blurring windows with class matching
Contrast Pass Configuration
Master brightness, saturation, and contrast adjustments
Corner Radius Setup
Fix the korners bug and match modern window designs
Refraction Effects
Learn about refraction as an alternative visual style