Re: Root background and Pager

Sasha_Vasko@osca.state.mo.us
Tue, 11 Aug 1998 16:12:36 -0500 


On 08/10/98 06:56:39 AM Guylhem AZNAR wrote :
>On Sun, Aug 09, 1998 at 09:29:17PM -0500, sashav wrote:
>> I recently run into a problem trying to use non-XPM image for root
>> background. I took a look into a Pager sources and discovered that this
>We would need additional libs to support non xpms (gif, png, jpeg...)
which
>may cause problems for autoconf (ifdefs to remove unavailable fomats).
>Moreover, I've no experience with libjpeg or libgif yet.
Me too, but one can always try.
>> ( for instance large image of beautiful mountain as the root and scaled
>> down version of the same thing in Pager ).
>Is it possible with standard libxpm to scale down pictures so that :

Ther are no tools for that in libXpm
>If you use ThisImage.xpm for the 1st time, ThisImage.small.xpm is created.
>Then ThisImage.small.xpm is cp'ed to background.small while ThisImage.xpm
>is cp'ed to background, so pager updates nicely.
>Then if you change background but go back to ThisImage.xpm, if
>ThisImage.small.xpm already exists, it is used without wasting CPU time on
>rescaling.

Not bad idea, but for some images it might not be good :
You can store most images in 8bit(to save space) without sucrificing
quality,
but if you try to scale them in 8bit you may get pretty unpretty, I mean it
is always better
to scale in true color.

So we it might be a good idea to implement both of this possibilities, by
adding new
config param to pager file. Something like :

*PagerBackgrType        0     ScaleRoot
*PagerBackgrType        0     UseXPM
*PagerBackgrType        0     SameAsRoot

Again, if we are storing small images in new files, we need to come up with
some cleanup
tools for those .small. files.

>I can do the latter (very simple with CheckFile()), but scaling an xpm,
>hmm uhh ... no idea !
>Maybe libXpm provides such a function, or we should write one ?

It does not. There is some code to do that in contrib package that goes
with libXpm,
but it needs some work.
>> I've uploaded two patches( for 1.4.5 and 1.5pre6 ) to the
>Could you please send me the patch.gz, in mime or uuencode ?
I'm working on second patch right now,
as far as I've found some more problems in Pager and my first patch.
>> maybe something like background rotation and easy configuration stuff.
>Good idea ! Maybe a configuration module for pager ?
>Please get 1.5pre7, try afscript scripting language : I think it'd be
>perfect for such config tools (and we can add any features we need/want).
I'll take a look.
Now,  is ASCP planned to include any functionality for Pager/background
configuration ?

Sasha.
PS: return address on this message is my work E-mail.
My Home E-mail : sashav@sprintmail.com



--
   WWW:   http://www.afterstep.org/
   FTP:   ftp://ftp.afterstep.org/
   MAIL:  http://www.caldera.com/linuxcenter/forums/afterstep.html