Useful Compiz Plugins: Vigo, PutPlus, SmartPut, Toggle-Decorations

IMHO, Compiz window manager is configurable enough for keyboard use if used with certain plug-ins.

Here are some plug-ins that I find essential:

1. Vigo -  Switch beween windows using arrow keys.
2. PutPlus, SmartPut - quickly positioning using a window to specific places on your screen, and moving them around.
3. General  Options - Toggle Horizontal, Vertical, and Full Screen Maximize.
4. Viewport Switcher - bind "Go To" for each viewport to a key and switch on the fly.
5. Scale Window Title Filter - run "Scale" and filter windows by typing their names.
6. Group and Tab - save desktop space by grouping the window and flip them around.
7. Toggle Decoration - Get rid of title bar to get more pixels of screen space.
8. Negative - easily highlight your widows by inverting them

Majority of the plug-ins are available in the regular compiz packages:

• compiz-plugins-extra
• compiz-plugins-main
• compiz-plugins-unsupported

Some, however, are still in dev land.

I wrote a small script to install Vigo, PutPlus, SmartPut, and Toggle Decoration. It requires git, since the plugins are pulled from repositories. It has been tested with Gentoo and Ubuntu.


To the plug-ins running quickly, install git using your package manager then run the following:

cd ~;
mkdir -p ~/tmp/compiz-plugins;
cd ~/tmp/compiz-plugins;
rm deploy-plugins;
wget -nc https://bitbucket.org/devnotes/random.dev.notes/raw/tip/compiz/deploy-plugins;
chmod u+x  deploy-plugins;
./deploy-plugins;
echo "Done"