Thoughts on XFCE 4.3.90: root-tail?

[Brian J. Tarricone]

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Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> David F. Skoll wrote:
>>> Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
>>> Is there a reason xfdesktop makes one big window for itself instead of
>>> drawing on the root window directly?
> 
> Ease of implementation is the main reason, but there are probably
> others.  I'm too tired to think of them.

Another is that drawing on the 'real' root window is fundamentally
incompatible with xfwm4's compositor, which does not draw the root
window at all.

> It's possible to draw the backdrop image the old way (though I really
> don't want to switch back), which would solve part of your problem, but
> root-tail would still clear and overwrite the desktop icons, which can't
> be done like the backdrop used to be done.  Well, I suppose it could be,
> but it would likely be horribly flickery and slow.

It occurs to me that the icons could be done in the same way
(pre-rendering the desktop to a pixmap and setting it as the window's
back pixmap), and it would be faster in some cases[1], though possibly
slower in others[2].  Either way, the back pixmap method was a pain in
the ass when interacting with the gtk theme, so I don't really want to
go back.

Not to mention I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting the drawing
routines just right (though they still could be improved), and I really
don't want to throw that away and start over with a bunch of new redraw
bugs.  Beta2 is not the time to reimplement all that crap anyway.

	-brian

[1]  Redraw while moving windows around on an uncomposited desktop would
be faster since the X server would already know how to redraw it, rather
than the app sending pixels again.  Performance on a composited desktop
wouldn't change.

[2] When something changes on the desktop, as the back pixmap would have
to be re-set (or would it?).

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