GDK vs. ImLib vs. Gdk/ImLib

[Square Avenue <dfinton d umn edu>]

Thanks to those who've replied to my earlier message; they were a great
help.

I've got two questions now:  One is that I'm trying to create a fractal
widget inherited from the drawing_area widget, but someone mentioned to me
about the pitfalls of color allocation.  Is there something more robust
than the drawing_area widget (like something from ImLib) that will easily
let me say "Okay I want to put color ###### here at this point"?  I looked
at ImLib's documentation a little bit and my impression is that 1)
everything is 24 bit and 2) you don't have to worry about color allocation
because ImLib takes care of that for you.  Would that be a good solution
for true-color fractal rendering?  And would a GTK/ImLib mix in my code be
detrimental?

My second question has to deal with threads.  Fractals are tricky to
implement in a window manager environment because you have to set aside
some time for the widgets to draw them selves as the image is rendering
(which can take anywhere from a few seconds to several months (years if
you're a real fractal enthusiast :) ).  This led me to threads, which is
another thing that is tricky to implement in a window manager environment.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.  Has anybody had any success
combining operations that take a long time in a GTK program with GTK
itself?

Any helpful hints appreciated.  :)

                                      - Dave

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  Name:  David Finton                  | "All free software is in Beta.  If
 Email:  dfinton@d.umn.edu             |  there is a free software package
   Web:  http://www.d.umn.edu/~dfinton |  bearing the version number 1.0 or
                                       |  greater, it is obsolete and must
                                       |  be replaced immediately by a
                                       |  newer, better Beta version."
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