Re: Splash screens: a summary

[Ken Fox <kfox vulpes com>]

Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> The problem with mouse pointers, if I remember well, is that
> they aren't owned by any window. Granted, once an app is
> launched, its windows may control the cursor *if* they have
> the focus.

If you're talking about X, then this isn't a problem **. Cursor shape
is associated with a window, not with an application or keyboard
focus. The thing that would be a neat extension to X would be a
global cursor annotation that would survive cursor changes when moving
over windows. For example, installing a "busy" cursor on the desktop
background could set a busy annotation so that when the mouse is
moved over the taskbar or window decorations the busy status doesn't
disappear completely.

One of the things that is a huge disappointment is the assumption
that Gnome has to live with the current state of X. IMHO Gnome could
be a major driver for new X functionality. Now that several major
workstation vendors are on board with Gnome, what's stopping Gnome
from improving X? (Fixing fonts in X would be a lot better than
fixing them in Gnome for example.)

- Ken

** Actually the reverse can be a problem; windows having unique
cursors is tedious. I've written several applications where I've
forgotten to install the same custom cursor on all the application
windows. It's kind of an embarassing mistake.