Re: pseudo transparency

[Sasha Vasko <sasha aftercode net>]

Owen Taylor wrote:

> Sasha Vasko <sasha aftercode net> writes:
> > On Friday 11 January 2002 17:56, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > The problem is that you have shared resource at hand, and like anything else 
> > it has to be managed by window manager. And ICCCM compliant/recommended way 
> > of doing it is to use selection. Not that I'm inventing a wheel here.
>
> Yes, in general I'm in favor of using manager resources to lock shared resources,
> but I just don't see the benefit to a change here. We have a existing "standard"
> that when used properly:
>
>  - Makes sure that no pixmaps are leaked
>  - Allows reliable notification as to what the current background is


Then I'd agree with Havoc's idea and make it a separate standard on 
freedesktop.org. Sort of post-factum standard.


> What it doesn't provide to the user is the ability to configure their background
> in one place and make sure that it will show correctly. But there is nothing
> we can do about that at this level:;
>   
>  * All a locking mechanism does is change "last wins" to "first wins". It
>    doesn't guarantee that the one the user has configured wins.
>
>  * The "big window" approach of Konqueror and Nautilus -- recommended in the WM
>    spec -- means that setting the root window is often insufficient anyways,
>    so just because you get the selection, doesn't mean that you are setting the
>    background that the user sees.
>
> I think it has to be up to the "desktop integrator" to make sure that there is
> a clear place to set the background and that works.
>
> I don't think the benefits of a change would be worth: 
>
>  * Having to modify all apps that use the current mechanism
>  * Making it impossible to have "run and exit" background setters
>  * Requiring some quite complex code in every app that wants to set the background.


Yep, there is that point of course.


> Regards,
>                                         Owen

Sasha