Re: GTK+-2.x planning

[Keith Packard <keithp keithp com>]

Around 16 o'clock on Mar 15, Soeren Sandmann wrote:

> I think I've heard something about X getting support for multicolor,
> alphablended and even animated(?) cursors, so this should probably be
> taken into account.

There is a desire to make this work, but I don't think anyone has looked 
into it very seriously.

The fundemental problem is how to manage overlays and mutable colormap
visuals.  Render provides a solution for the visuals, but making this work 
in overlays is very difficult -- overlays aren't exposed inside the server 
making it necessary to find an appropriate window to draw the cursor to.

I have a grand unification theory for X which would solve this problem by 
changing the fundemental drawing target within the server from the window 
to the frame buffer, but that's some time away still.

It's easy in Windows as that window system doesn't support multiple 
simultaneous pixel formats on the screen.

Keith Packard        XFree86 Core Team        Compaq Cambridge Research Lab