Re: MacOS X first picture

[jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys)]

> Sender: hp@icon.labs.redhat.com
> From: Havoc Pennington <hp@redhat.com>
> Resent-From: gnome-list@gnome.org
> Date: 08 Jan 2000 02:57:27 -0500
> To: John Sullivan <sullivan@eazel.com>
> Cc: Iain <nodatadj@strayduck.com>, <gnome-list@gnome.org>
> Subject: Re: MacOS X first picture
> -----
> John Sullivan <sullivan@eazel.com> writes:
> > Can Sawmill/E themes include translucent menus and windows, alpha channel
> > drop shadows, and video effects for window opening/closing?
> >
> 
> Not a chance. :-)
> 
> It will be quite some time before we get an imaging model as good as
> MacOS X into the X server. Some people are said to be working on it,
> but it's a big job and will require applications to be recoded.  E
> tries to do all kinds of crazy stuff and often succeeds but it's
> fighting and torturing X all the way and it's inherently going to have
> lots of limitations. No way to make it properly polished like MacOS X.
> 

The person working on a new X imaging model is Keith Packard (formerly
of the X consortium, then NCD, and as of last summer, SuSE).

Keith (re)wrote large parts of the X server while at MIT.  I can't think 
of anyone better to work on this, and he has a pretty good graphics 
background in addition to understanding the X server better than almost 
anyone on the planet. The problems with X graphics are not due to Keith: 
they were mistakes in our specification made before he joined the X 
consortium (or limitations of hardware of 10 years ago: alpha blending 
wasn't possible on 1-3 mip machines of the era). He's been thinking hard 
about this since last summer, and now is the time for input; certainly 
alpha blending is on the table as a requirement.

He is now in the core XFree86 team, as you might expect.  The X server 
I demo'ed on Itsy last spring was done by Keith.  He wants it to be able 
to support things like the gnome canvas directly in the X server (allowing 
all the fancy tricks to work well over the network efficiently), etc.

Those with serious graphics skills interested in helping should let Keith
know.  He is Keithp@suse.com.
			- Jim



--
Jim Gettys
Technology and Corporate Development
Compaq Computer Corporation
jg@pa.dec.com