annoying flicker due to xserver-based background redraw

[Mikulas Patocka <mikulas twibright com>]

Hi

Xfce-terminal and gnome-terminal have a problem with screen flicker. How 
to reproduce it:

1. disable xfce compositor (with the compositor enabled, the bug happens
        too, but with lower probability)
2. set black backround and white text in the terminal
3. open two terminals on two different xfce workspaces, maximize them
4. switch between these workspaces

When you switch workspace, the whote terminal window flashes with white 
for a short time and then the black background is redrawn.

The bug is caused by xserver-driven window redraw. When the window is made 
visible, xserver redraws it with white color, and then the xserver sends 
the expose event to the application, causing the application to redraw the 
window with correct black color.


I'd like to ask if there is some way how to fix the xfce terminal to 
disable xserver-based redraw.

For Xlib based programs, one could disable xserver-based redraw with 
XSetWindowBackgroundPixmap(display, window, None), but how to do this in 
gtk?

One can call gtk_widget_modify_bg on the terminal window, it changes the 
the color of the screen flicker, but it can't eliminate it.


Another suggestion: Could it be possible to disable this xserver-based 
background redraw globally? All gtk applications that I tried suffer from 
this flicker when switching workspaces (though, it is particularly 
annoying for terminals because I switch terminals often). There is no 
reason why should the xserver redraw the window background with a solid 
color, if the application is going to redraw the whole window anyway.

Mikulas