Re: Re: [Gpe] [Ann] Matchbox 0.8 Released

Hi;

on Tue, Feb 10, 2004 at 01:46:01PM -0700, Michael L Torrie wrote:
> On Tue, 2004-02-10 at 13:37, Matthew Allum wrote:
> >      * Bleeding edge X Composite Extension support.
> 
> This is seriously cool stuff.  I'be been following the gpe list for a
> while now without taking a look.  I am impressed.  One thing I noticed
> is that the composite extensions allow for alpha-blending of pixmaps,
> not just shadows.  The rounded edges of the windows would sure look
> better if they were smooth, rather than the current jagged edges.  Is
> this little visual improvement going to be possible to make to matchbox?
> 

Yes this is totally possible with the new ARGB Visual you get with 
composite. However I've not as yet added support for ARGB window types 
to Matchbox.  

The current compositing additions are a 'first go' to get an idea on
performance of composite on something like an Ipaq. The additional
code is also pretty non-intrusive, can do stuff like be turned on and
off on the fly ( just about ) and performance is acceptable ( Im sure
it can be improved though ).

The problem with adding ARGB support to do stuff like smooth
shapeing of the windows is the code suddenly becomes very intrusive 
especially if you want things to still look good on a non composite
server or still being able to turn compositing on/off easily.

This coupled with the fact composite is still a moving target and very
much in development, no toolkits as yet support ARGB wins ( afaik GTK
2.6 may do ) and how ARGB windows actually handle events not as yet
really defined I've held off - Im trying to avoid a potential
maintanence nightmare.

Im not sure what todo next regarding adding it - whack it in and work
round the above problems, do a composite only branch or start
experimenting with something completely new and different that
basically requires hardware accelerated composite :-)

  -- Matthew