On 12 Oct 2001 19:12:12 -0400 Vladimir Vukicevic <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> babbled profusely:
> On Thu, 2001-10-11 at 09:30, Lars Munch wrote: > > [...] > > Why is no one using this feature? > > Is it broken? is it to slow? > > Another reason is that while the sample program makes you think it has > translucent windows, it really doesn't. It simply doesn't set a > background color on the window, which tells X to "use what was there > before the window was mapped", and then composits other figures on top > of this. If you move anything below the window, the window doesn't get > updated. (If you obscure the "translucent" window with another, and > then raise the translucent one, it looks like it works, but it's the > same thing.) yup :) > Until we have an X extension where one can explicitly give a RGBA value > to use as the window background and have the server handle the layers, I > doubt we will see any applications having translucent windows. Doing > this will also require the X server to compute update regions for > windows based on not only window geometry but also window translucency, > and will require sending redraw events to translucent windows if > anything below them changes (which normally wouldn't happen, as they > would obscure anything else on that spot). well actually the server woudl have to implicitly do backing store for all parent windows (and now all children render to the backign store) that have alpha in their background mask (ie having alpha means an alpha value of other than 0 or 255 if we talk abouta range of 0-255, with 0 being transparent) this coudl be optimized so X now tiles the backign store -rather than having it linear scanlien by scanline.. this means "tiles" that are completely opaque can bypass being backd and render directly - those completely transparent can bypass any backign and avoid rendering entirely. the rest will need computation... :) > Yes, it's possible to do some quick hacks for things which will only > appear above mostly-static content, like menus, as it will give the > right effect (mostly -- will look quite bad in, say, a video playing > application with a menubar), but it's almost not worth the effort at > this point. yup. people keep asking for transparency - and i can't do more than nasty hacks that look good in screenshots - but not in real ... moving.. life :) > - Vlad > > > _______________________________________________ > Render mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/render -- --------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" -------------------- The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unemployed Bum [EMAIL PROTECTED] Mobile Phone: +61 (0)413 451 899 Home Phone: 02 9386 9362 _______________________________________________ Render mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://XFree86.Org/mailman/listinfo/render
