>
> GTK uses 32-bit integers for most things now, I would say "require a
> couple days fixing" rather than "break horribly" - unless the problems
> go way beyond integer ranges, e.g. perhaps having a 16 gigabyte pixmap
> will cause problems. ;-)
>
Most Xlib interfaces use "int" for coordinates (for reasons
of portability, originally); the only serious issues occur in some of
the graphics calls, where structures are sometimes passed in a compact
representation so that they can go onto the wire unchanged. Alternates
would have to be added (or we ignore it entirely and rely on Render and
OpenGL for rendering), or we accept a limitation in the rendering and
just widen the windowing interface (how many applications will have a
single window mapping the entire screen on a display wall? Dunno....
Would have to do more serious investigation).
It is certainly alot more than a few days work, but it is probably not
a huge number of man years, either.
So I don't think even widening the coordinate system is all that difficult
(in the sense of having to badly break lots of applications, which is
what would cost serious time). I just think that there are much more urgent
fish to fry.
- Jim
--
Jim Gettys
Cambridge Research Laboratory
HP Labs, Hewlett-Packard Company
[email protected]
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