Patent ID: 7996787

Claim:
A system for window management and desktop compositing effects, wherein the system comprises: a plug-in architecture storing a plurality of visual effect plug-ins, wherein the plurality of visual effect plug-ins include visual effect instructions for rendering a plurality of visual effects on a desktop; a computing device coupled to the plug-in architecture storing the plurality of visual effect plug-ins, wherein the computing device includes a desktop manager configured to: display the desktop on a screen coupled to the computing device; receive information relating to one or more events detected on the computing device, wherein the one or more events detected on the computing device relate to at least one window presented on the desktop displayed on the screen coupled to the computing device; instantiate one or more of the plurality of visual effect plug-ins stored in the plug-in architecture in response to receiving the information relating to the one or more events detected on the computing device, wherein the desktop manager includes one or more pre-configured event bindings that cause the one or more detected events to trigger the one or more instantiated visual effect plug-ins; and composite the at least one window presented on the desktop displayed on the screen with one or more of the plurality visual effects that are associated with the one or more instantiated visual effect plug-ins, wherein the desktop manager combines the at least one window and the one or more visual effects associated with the instantiated visual effect plug-ins to composite the at least one window; a graphics card configured to receive one or more visual effect instructions associated with the instantiated visual effect plug-ins from the desktop manager, wherein the one or more visual effect instructions cause the graphics card to render the one or more visual effects combined with the composited window on the desktop displayed on the screen coupled to the computing device; and a configuration interface coupled to the computing device including the one or more pre-configured event bindings, wherein the configuration interface enables a user to customize the one or more pre-configured event bindings for the one or more instantiated visual effect plug-ins.