Re: Notes on the Metacity compositor

["BJörn Lindqvist" <bjourne gmail com>]

On 23 Oct 2006 22:17:32 +0200, Soeren Sandmann <sandmann daimi au dk> wrote:
> - Framework for effects
>
>   Current metacity has hooks for some events, such as minimization and
>   unminimization. More should be added, but it is not always trivial
>   to get right when windows can be closed and disappear without
>   warning.

I don't think the hooks are enough. For example, when you minimize a
window, Metacity draws an animation consisting of black rectangles
after the window has been unmapped. I once tried to change it so that
it would look more like the minimize animation in MS Windows. One of
the big differences is that in Windows, the animation is drawn before
the window is unmapped. So Metacity had to be changed so that the
animation was drawn before the window is unmapped. It was nontrivial.
And I think it would be even harder to adapt the "hooks" so that it
could support animations both before and after the window is unmapped.

That is just one example, but it seems to me that Metacity wasn't
designed with flashy graphical effects in mind. One has to wonder: Is
the effort required to make Metacity's compositing as good as Compiz
greater or smaller than making Compiz as usable and mature as
Metacity? Has anyone analyzed Compiz code and compared?

--
mvh Björn