Re: Compositor for Sawfish?

Hi,
[email protected] (2018-04-23 at 1954.30 +0200):
> I managed to completely miss that integration, thank you very much for
> pointing it out to me. Compton it is then.

I was using xcompmgr, as I was only interested in the transparency for
drag and drop (some apps give you a huge block, even of similar colors
assuming one is transparent, and dropping it in small zone becomes
hard/impossible) and not much more.

I don't remember why I didn't consider compton... now that it was
mentioned, I gave it a try, but via config file (and I guess I will
stay that way). It seems to suffer less from stuck windows (programms
that close multiple windows, or closing a terminal closing other
lanched apps -> first window goes, second stays as solid blocks of
color with frame). While at it, discovered Merlin message windows*
draw with frame transparent if you ask for transparent frames. Weird,
because normal frames don't. But that lead to a patch (see other email
soon, initial _NET_FRAME_EXTENTS support).

*: old set of scripts, once/while I get out of this old hacked SF
 version, they need to be ported to modern code if not already and
 become part of SF.

> What I'm missing there (and with other compositors, it seems) the
> ability to control the transparency of single windows on the fly (not
> via window rules, but through key commands), for example. Do you know
> of any way to do that?

The brute way: call transset, compton-trans or similar tools (as in
shell or Sawfish calling the shell). From inside SF, after reading
compton.jl quickly, it seems you will have to create commands to set
the transparency.

But I am not sure the setting will stick, the more I look, the more
I'm convinced it will be changed to something based in the general
settings sooner or later. Meaning you will probably have to hack a lot
of the file (for example make it operate in two modes: basic launcher
and cmd providers, or total control that overrides other settings), or
just launch compton by other means.

> On Sun, 22 Apr 2018 23:21:55 +0300
> Timo Korvola <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Using Compton myself, as it is supported by sawfish-config
> > (Appearance/Window Effects).  Provides shadows, translucency,
> > fading.  A downside is that the wireframe window move & resize
> > animations don't show the window size.  Only opaque move & resize
> > work properly.  You'll probably want opaque move anyway but opaque
> > resize cause somewhat excessive redrawing.

Just thinking loud... I wonder if those could be solved by operating
in the frame first (instead of old XOR trick) or even a plain color
polygon (filled or line) or a "screenshot" of the window, and, at the
end, apply to the real window. Think of some new modes that are
composable, yet fast by leaving the original window untouched as long
as possible.

Interesting discovery: Merlin messages show position of window while
performing the XOR (everything else freezes), while I was expecting
just the XOR frame to appear. The messages don't appear at all with
compton and XOR (everything freezes, no exceptions).

Later,
GSR
 

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Sawfish ML