How to Enable Dynamic Transparency on Ubuntu

This updated guide examines How to Enable Dynamic Transparency on Ubuntu and organizes the essential facts, background, and practical takeaways in clear American English.

Fortunately, GNOME extension developers have taken action to bring Dynamic Transparency back. So, having Dynamic Transparency on Ubuntu 19.04 is easy.

Install the Firefox extension

To get started, you will need a package that allows the Firefox extension to work. Setup seems complicated, but you will only have to do them once. Besides, the combination of Firefox extension and this package will allow you to download any GNOME extension and activate it right from the internet.

First, install the package.

sudo apt install chrome-gnome-shell

Go to Firefox's GNOME Shell Integration add-on page and add it to Firefox.

Install the GNOME extension

You are ready to install the GNOME extension. Visit the Dynamic Panel Transparency extension page of GNOME. You will see a toggle switch in the upper right corner of the page. Convert it to enable Dynamic Transparency on the system.

Wait a few seconds to download and set up the extension. Once done, check it out. Minimize all your windows and review the desktop. Is the top panel (top panel) semi-transparent? If the answer is yes, it means the extension is working. Try dragging a window to the top. If the top panel is dimmed, everything is working properly and you have Dynamic Transparency on the system.

Make the Dock transparent

After seeing the desktop looks much better with the transparency of the top panel, you might want to do the same thing with the dock. This is not really a super convenient solution to this problem, but it is certainly not difficult to implement. First, install dconf to be able to modify the GNOME configuration.

sudo apt install dconf-editor

Then, open dconf-editor. This is a graphical application and you can search for it. Once opened, you will see a warning that you can easily ruin everything. Please confirm to continue.

Navigate through the menu by clicking org> gnome> shell> extensions> dash-to-dock . In the Ubuntu dock settings section, scroll down until you see transparency-mode options. Please select it.

On the settings page, turn off Use default value . Set the value to FIXED and click Apply.

Return to dash-to-dock settings. Select background-opacity. Again, disable the Use default value option and set the transparency value you want. 1.0 is fuzzy. 0.0 is completely transparent. When done, click Apply.

Everything is complete! Your Desktop now has Dynamic Transparency again and you can adjust the transparency of the dock bar as you like. These methods will work well for a long time. GNOME developers can show how to deploy Dynamic Transparency in their own way again, but this feature probably won't appear on Ubuntu for a while.

Hope you are succesful.