compositing: clients requesting effects / giving hints about effects

[Christian Neumair <cneumair gnome org>]

The GNOME file manager Nautilus has a file management mode called
"spatial mode". Each folder is displayed in a separate window. As you
click a children folder, it is opened in a new window.

It would be great if we could give the CM an effect hint:

If the CM plans to draw an appearance or disappearance effect, it should
not originate from the task switcher, but from a particular region in a
particular window. In our case, we'd use the children folder's icon in
the parent folder window.

What do you think about this proposal? Do you have any implementation
suggestions?

Maybe the child window should have two hints:

 effect_origin_window=window
 effect_origin_rectangle=rect

If none are set, compositing managers can fallback to the current
behavior (i.e. use the task area).

>From an application developer perspective, we have also to consider that
the origin may change at runtime [in our case the folder in the parent
window may change its position].

best regards,
 Christian Neumair


-- 
Christian Neumair <cneumair gnome org>