Multi-monitor aterm transparency

Question

I have 3 monitors which I set the background with using

xpmroot my-5760x1200bg.png

I then setup aterm to use transparency by adding the following to my ~/.Xdefaults file.

aterm*transparent:true
aterm*shading:60
aterm*background:Black
aterm*foreground:White
aterm*scrollBar:true
aterm*scrollBar_right:true
aterm*transpscrollbar:true
aterm*saveLines:32767
aterm*font:*-*-fixed-medium-r-normal--*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1
aterm*boldFont:*-*-fixed-bold-r-normal--*-*-140-*-*-*-*-iso8859-1

I am getting transparency on my aterm windows, but the image that is coming through with the transparency isn't correct. On the left monitor things are fine, but the middle and right monitors both seem to use the leftmost 1920x1200 of the background image as what is behind the terminal window. It would be as if every screen had the same background as the monitor on the left.

Is this something that can be configured to be correct, or is this a bug?

I'm running Gentoo Linux with Xmonad.

Answer 1

This probably due to "fake transparency", where the term just takes a snapshot of what is underneath it, and uses it as a background.

You might try urxvt aka rxvt-unicode (aterm's chosen successor), which supports fake and real transparency. I believe real transparency also needs a composting manager, such as Xcompmgr, Cairo-compmgr or Unagi (or the Compiz WM, but I doubt you want to leave Xmonad just for that).