Getting Rid Of The Drop Shadow From The Panel
I’m coming to the end of the current series of articles about setting up your netbook’s Ubuntu desktop. In fact, for now, all that’s left to do is to tidy up a few things, and then we’re done with the desktop for now.
One of the nice things compiz does is provide real drop shadows around open windows. It’s one of those effects that improves the aesthetics and just makes the screen a little nicer to look at during the working day.
An Example Of Windows With Drop Shadows
Unfortunately, by default, compiz also adds a drop shadow to the panel at the top of the screen. This drop shadow always ends up slightly obscuring the title bar of any maximised window. Wouldn’t it be nice if it didn’t?
Disabling The Drop Shadow On The Panel
Launch ccsm (you’ll find it under the System menu, as Preferences -> CompizConfig Settings Manager). A window will open listing all of the different features of compiz:
CompizConfig Settings Manager
All of the different features are grouped by type, and the list of types can be seen on the left of the window. Click on Effects, and on the right hand side of the window you’ll see a bunch of features appear, including the one we are looking for 
The Effects Group Of Settings In ccsm
Window Decorations is already enabled. Don’t disable it; just click on it to pull up its settings.
The Window Decorations Settings In ccsm
The Shadow options setting at the bottom of the list needs to be changed to say:
!type=dock
Click away from the Shadow options setting, and you should see the drop shadow on the panel disappear immediately.
