Understood. ✅
No Apple branding, no Aqua nostalgia, no Cupertino framing.
This is macwmfx — a neutral, compositor-style visual system that happens to target macOS via Cocoa/Quartz.
Below is a clean, brand-agnostic, Linux-ricing–style design space, rewritten as if this were documentation for a cross-platform WM effects engine.
Think like a compositor author, not a platform vendor. Each window is a scene node with geometry, materials, filters, and motion.
(Linux: gaps, rounded corners, window shape)
- Per-corner radius (independent corners)
- Radius interpolation by focus / state
- Asymmetric window geometry
- Non-rectangular window masks
- Cut corners, chamfers, notches
- Soft vs hard edges
- Visual gaps without geometry movement
- Inner vs outer padding
- Elastic resize deformation
- Perspective skew (inactive windows)
- Window silhouette profiles
(Linux: borders, outlines, neon edges)
- Per-side border thickness
- Gradient borders
- Animated borders (pulse, wave, scan)
- Focus-reactive outlines
- Glow borders
- Multi-layer frames
- Noise-textured borders
- Blended borders (overlay, add, multiply)
- Directional borders
- Debug-style outlines
- Borders fading into shadows
(Linux: picom shadows, depth cues)
- Shadow radius & spread
- Shadow color per window/app
- Multi-shadow stacks
- Directional lighting model
- Focus-based depth boost
- Occlusion-aware shadows
- Shadow grain/noise
- Animated shadow response
- Glow instead of shadow
- Inner shadows
- Depth exaggeration layers
(Linux: blur, transparency, opacity rules)
- Background blur radius
- Variable blur across window surface
- Blur falloff curves
- Noise-dithered blur
- Tint overlays
- Saturation control
- Frost density
- Glass thickness illusion
- Parallax through transparency
- Distorted / refracted blur
- Gradient opacity
- Region-based blur masks
(Linux: decorations, titlebars)
- Unified or separated chrome
- Adjustable chrome height
- Invisible or auto-hide chrome
- Floating chrome layers
- Transparent chrome
- Detached control strips
- Bottom or side chrome
- Independent chrome materials
- Custom control placement
- Animated controls
- Custom glyph sets
- Hover and press effects
(Linux: client padding, internal margins)
- Content inset margins
- Soft internal frames
- Inner glow or shadow
- Content clipping masks
- Edge fades
- Active content highlight
- Internal depth layering
- Independent content curvature
- Scroll-edge indicators
(Linux: compositor animations)
- Open / close transitions
- Focus change animations
- Snap and tile animations
- Inertial window movement
- Spring-based resizing
- Motion blur
- Custom easing curves
- Per-app animation profiles
- Chained animations
- Interruptible transitions
- Global animation scaling
- State-based motion rules
(Linux: active/inactive styles)
- Active window glow
- Inactive dimming
- Background defocus
- Desaturation rules
- Depth lift on focus
- Cursor proximity response
- Focus halos
- Pulse or shimmer on focus
- Urgency indicators
- Hover elevation
- Attention animations
(Linux: tabbed, stacked, grouped layouts)
- Visual grouping frames
- Shared background glass
- Group shadows
- Connectors between windows
- Tabbed window visuals
- Group chrome
- Blur pooling
- Stack depth indicators
- Split seams
- Animated grouping transitions
(Linux: layer depth, stacking)
- Depth fog
- Atmospheric perspective
- Parallax by z-order
- Faux-3D stacking
- Z-axis animations
- Spatial snapping previews
- Depth-aware shadows
- Window elevation cues
(Linux: theming engines)
- Global palettes
- Per-app color overrides
- Dynamic theme switching
- Light/dark interpolation
- Time-based color shifts
- Background-reactive tinting
- Monochrome modes
- High-contrast themes
- True-black themes
- Accessibility-first palettes
(Linux: shaders)
- Color grading
- Hue rotation
- Grain overlays
- Bloom
- Vignette
- Chromatic aberration
- Scanlines
- Retro / CRT effects
- Tone mapping
- Debug wireframes
- Stylized rendering modes
(Power-user / compositor dev tools)
- Window bounds overlays
- Layer tree visualization
- Repaint flashing
- Frame timing heatmaps
- Z-order outlines
- Focus routing traces
- Lifecycle animations
- Event overlays
(Linux: declarative WM configs)
macwmfx rules may target:
- App identity
- Window role/type
- Focus state
- Workspace
- Monitor
- Time or environment
- User-defined conditions
Supports:
- Profiles
- Presets
- Live reload
- Conditional logic
- Overrides
- Layered configs
(Because ricing)
- Liquid windows
- Breathing materials
- Idle float motion
- Ripple effects
- Audio-reactive visuals
- Chaos/debug modes
- Showcase themes
- Minimalist modes
- Maximalist modes
- Linux WM → pixel authority
- macwmfx → material, depth, and motion authority
No branding. No platform ideology. Just a window effects engine with a declarative config.
If you want next, I can:
- design a
macwmfx.jsonschema - map each category to Quartz / CoreAnimation primitives
- or produce preset configs (minimal, glass-heavy, brutalist, retro)
Say the word.