Something to be added to the wish list.
Richard Rose (richard.rose@zen.co.uk)
Tue, 23 Feb 1999 18:34:14 -0000
Hi there,
I had an idea a while back that would be nice to add to a WM, and since
I am currently using AfterStep, I thought I'd suggest it here, and see
what the developers think about it, and how hard it would be to
implement.
The idea is this:
When an application loses focus, after a set time, it fades to glass.
The way I envisage it working is like this.
When an application loses focus, the root window passes a structure to
the WM containing a reference to itself, it's children, and the colour
palette it's using. The WM waits for the timeout, and when the timeout
is reached a set of colours fading roughly down to the colours from the
section or root window behind it are calculated, and the colours are
rapidly reassigned, making the fade effect. The intermediate colours
can then be dumped, leaving you only with the original colours saved
somewhere, and the root window colours, which is what can be seen
through the lost-focus objects. To make it "glassy", the edges of each
widget inside the window, and the window itself would have to have a
light grey/white border.
This feature could realistically only be implemented in 24bpp or
higher, I think, due to the number of colours that may be needed, but
if anyone thinks it can be done with less bpp, please voice your
opinion, and preferably with a reason. A way to optimise the routines
would be to save the colours needed when the objects lose focus, as
they will only be brought back into focus or killed afterwards. If they
are killed, then the colours can be dumped, if the are to be brought
back into focus, then they will not have moved, as they would have had
to get the focus back to have moved. Once the object is in focus, then
you can safely dump the extra colours. Again, if RAM is excessively
plentiful, the extra colours can be saved until the object is actually
moved, saving calculation time if the object isn't moved.
In my opinion, this would be *very* nice, but I can see that there woul
d be problems with it. For example, what if you run out of colours?
What if you are copying text from one window/application to another? To
overcome the second problem is quite easy. This feature could be
implemented as an alternative to the minimise styles that are already
present.
Comments/suggestions? I'm sure that's what the list is for.
Richard Rose - Network Consultant - Zen Internet
Richard.Rose@zen.co.uk
--
WWW: http://www.afterstep.org/
FTP: ftp://ftp.afterstep.org/
MAIL: http://www.caldera.com/linuxcenter/forums/afterstep.html