Fade out of focus windows in xmonad with xcompmgr and transset

Assuming that you have xmonad already installed on an ubuntu (or other debian based) machine:

• Install xcompmgr and transset:

sudo apt-get install xcompmgr transset

• Add the following to your .xprofile:

xcompmgr -c&

• Add the following to your xmonad.hs:

import XMonad.Hooks.FadeInactive
myLogHook :: X ()
myLogHook = fadeInactiveLogHook fadeAmount
where fadeAmount = 0.4 --or 0xdddddddd etc
main = xmonad defaultConfig { logHook = myLogHook }
-- replace defaultConfig with your config class (ie gnomeConfig if you're using gnome+xmonad)

• Restart your x session (logout)

• Done

Sources:
http://serverfault.com/questions/29866/using-compiz-with-xmonad

http://hackage.haskell.org/packages/archive/xmonad-contrib/0.8/doc/html/XMonad-Hooks-FadeInactive.html

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xcompmgr