Not easily unfortunately. Would have to figure out how the plugin that provides that functionality works and rewrite parts of it.

They are, it's just less noticeable because they are broken up into individual letters.

Just posted a new blog entry about the screen.

I often get maps for the community atlas where people haven't properly expanded the screen to cover things that end up outside the map border, so perhaps this is a good read for some.

It is the same catalog, minus the borders drawing tool. Since cartouches doesn't have it's own button on the toolbar, it isn't uncommon that Ralf takes these symbols from it and throws into the border catalog for easy access. The border catalog is usually quite small anyway, so combining them usually works out fine.

How about using a polygon with a solid color fill, and transparency and edge fade? Basically similar to the starship background from the 2007 annual that Ralf used in today's livestream. Look at https://youtu.be/oYd4mL9Hdbc?t=590 and watch for a few seconds to see before and after effects are turned on. You may want a slightly higher opacity than that template uses.