Re: Metacity Compositor

[Thomas Wood <thos gnome org>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> BJörn Lindqvist wrote:
>> On 10/4/06, Rob Adams <readams readams net> wrote:
>>> The effort required to add eye candy effects to metacity is much
>>> smaller, in my opinion, than the effort required to make compiz a good,
>>> usable window manager.  Most of the effects code is likely to be
>>> reusable in metacity and KWin; compiz makes for a good experimental
>> Are you sure? Compositing in Metacity has been in progress at least
>> since August 2004. It doesnt seem like a small effort.
>>
> 
> I don't think "in progress" is very accurate, at least I have not seen a 
> lot of code going in, granted I haven't been paying huge amounts of 
> attention.
> 
> I don't understand why it would be a huge effort for 2D stuff like 
> minimize animations, drop shadows, etc. Think xrender rather than opengl.
> 
> But, I have not really been involved in the conversations about it and 
> can't say I have a deep understanding.

Ditto, which is why I haven't mentioned this, but I have been wondering
why people are equating compositing with 2D OpenGL effects. I really
want to have a composite manager so I don't have to shudder each time I
move a window and watch it redraw.

Would it not be possible to have a really simple compositing manager in
Metacity? This seems much more in tune with Metacity's remit than
anything else (perhaps drop shadows and a nice minimise animation are
the only two things I would improve).

-Thomas