Re: XFree86 5.0 TODO

On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 10:38:03AM +0100, Egbert Eich wrote:
> Sven Luther writes:
>  > 
>  > BTW, how would these attributes be compatible with the config file
>  > option ? Could it be possible to set them in the config file, or is it
>  > unecessary as 5.0 will have no control file whatsoever and this is going
>  > to replace it ?
>  > 
> If it makes sense to set these attributes in the config file we should
> definitely have a way to allow to set initial values in a config file.
> The fate of the config file is not decided - however I expect it will 
> be a lot less mandatory.

But you would still need it to set things like resolution and such, no ?

Or maybe will your attribute querying system replace it ? I agree that
the configuration file should go away, but something should replace it,
at least for some basic information (what video card to use, use both
heads or only one, what depth, ...) at least for the first launch. A
configuration tool can take over after that, and the information
provided should be easily writable by the configuration tool.

BTW, do your work have anything in common with the DRI configurator
project ?

> >
> > For example, i don't think you can implement the windows zooming thingy
> > with what you propose. that his, have one viewport/monitor be a zoomed
> > version of a window, even if we move or resize the window.
>
> There are a lot of other things involved: The driver has no notion
> about windows. You'd have to know the window coordinates which can
> be queried by the application. The application then has to pass the
> coordinates (x,y,w,h) to the extension. With Xinerama we would
> have to do some juggling, though.

We are thinking about using a common framebuffer for both heads.
This mean that both heads would have the same x/y space for both heads,
if the chip supports it (it does for me, and will probably for future
chips). But then, i am not (yet) familiar with Xinerama.

> This should work too with what I propose. Your application just
> whould have to query for a certain attribute that is hopefully
> registered.
> A generic interface that is not aware of the nature of this attribute
> would just give you slider elements for (x,y,w,h) so you can set
> your coordinates by hand. A little clumbsy but it should work.

But would it be sane to do so ? The configurator app needs to know the
window id (as used by the server). The user would designate it by
cliking on a window or something such, same as when we kill a window or
something such, and then the server code moving the window would have a
callback or something that would call, if supported, an XAA accel hook
which set the viewport. We can even simply use AdjustFrame for this,
with a bit of extension or something such. Adjust Frame is mostly only a
few register calls so it would be quite fast. 

But then, i am really not all that familiar with X outside of the driver
stuff, if i get a bit of free time i will try to look at this more.

Friendly,

Sven Luther