On 3/22/06, Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > On Mar 22, 2006, at 7:56 PM, Kevin Toppenberg wrote: > > > > > At least the version of VNC I installed (under OS X) is an X11 > application. I think you're confusing X11 applications with the X11 > protocol. > > At any rate, what is unusual (unique?) about X11 is that it is a TCP/ > IP based network application, where applications communicate with a > display. If you move the mouse, a message will be sent to the > application, notifying it of the event, and the application will > respond by sending a message back indicating how the display should > be updated.
I guess I am wondering whether or not all this messaging results in greater bandwidth usage than just sending an image of the resulting screen (as VNC does). Some people think this seems rather backwards, but the > applications are just ordinary network applications relying on the > services of another program to provide the user interface. That's why > it's possible to have multiple displays (on different boxes) for the > same application. It also explains why X11 can be more portable > across platforms. There seems to be some difference of opinion over > the merits of this approach. Personally, I think it is quite > ingenious, but not unproblematic, so I guess I come down somewhere in > the middle: I think of it as a useful approach having both advantages > and disadvantages. It is especially useful as a kind of lingua franca > for cross platform development, and indeed many projects use it as a > kind of fallback option. PLT Scheme, for example, has both Aqua and > X11 versions for OS X. The X11 version can be used for development, > but is also available as a pure open source option (for Darwin) if > you don't want to run OS X. Of course, X11 can also be used under Linux. I know that my wife's mac has an early version of OsX that didn't come with X11 and I could't run CrossOver Office because of it. So I found an add-on X11 that had to be run first, and looked terrible. I gave it up. Thanks Kevin ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid0944&bid$1720&dat1642 _______________________________________________ Hardhats-members mailing list Hardhats-members@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hardhats-members
