A slick feature

[Richard Rose <richard rose zen co uk>]

Hi there,

I'm new to Gnome (ok, let's be honest, I've d/l'ed it at work, but not 
actually loaded it on my machine at home, due to lack of space), but I 
have a suggestion, which I'd like people (preferably developers in 
general) to look at, and make comments on, and if the idea seems 
feasible, I'll post it to the development list, as an entry for the 
wish list.

The idea is this:
When an application is minimised, with this option selected, it fades 
to glass.

The way I envisage it working is like this.
When an application minimises, the root window passes a structure to 
the WM containing a reference to itself, it's children, and the colour 
palette it's using. The WM calculates a set of colours fading roughly 
down to the colours from the section or root window behind it are 
calculated, and the colours are rapidly reassigned, making the fade 
effect. The intermediate colours can then be dumped, leaving you only 
with the original colours saved somewhere, and the root window colours, 
which is what can be seen through the lost-focus objects. To make it 
"glassy", the edges of each widget inside the window, and the window 
itself would have to have a light grey/white border.

This feature could realistically only be implemented in 24bpp or 
higher, I think, due to the number of colours that may be needed, but 
if anyone thinks it can be done with less bpp, please voice your 
opinion, and preferably with a reason. A way to optimise the routines 
would be to save the colours needed when the objects lose focus, as 
they will only be brought back into focus or killed afterwards. If they 
are killed, then the colours can be dumped, if the are to be brought 
back into focus, then they will not have moved, as they would have had 
to get the focus back to have moved. Once the object is in focus, then 
you can safely dump the extra colours. Again, if RAM is excessively 
plentiful, the extra colours can be saved until the object is actually 
moved, saving calculation time if the object isn't moved.

In my opinion, this would be *very* nice, but I can see that there 
would be problems with it. For example, what if you run out of colours? 
What if you are copying text from one window/application to another? To 
overcome the second problem is quite easy. This feature could be 
implemented as an alternative to the minimise styles that are already 
present.

Comments/suggestions? I'm sure that's what the list is for.

Richard Rose  -  Network Consultant  -  Zen Internet
Richard.Rose@zen.co.uk