Re: new background images in cvs

Hi All;

on Mon, Feb 10, 2003 at 11:27:25AM +0000, Philip Blundell wrote:
>
> Yes, I suggest you add a key like GPE/Desktop/Background that just holds
> a URL. We should obviously provide some kind of UI to set it, probably
> with a thumbnail display based on gpeiconlist.
>

Could I suggest extending this to cover more than just images. The
value would be in the form <background type>:<parameters>.

Id suggest having values follow;

img-stretched:<uri/filename>
img-tiled:<uri/filename>
img-centered:<uri/filename>
col-solid:<color definition>
col-gradient-vertical:<start color>,<end color>
col-gradient-horizontal:<start color>,<end color>

Where a color definition is in the form #RRGGBB .
 

> Setting the root background with gpe-setbg and having all desktop
> programs inherit it via librootimage would be another possibility, and
> would go some way to avoiding the issue of stale pixmaps. But, it's
> rather harder to handle size changes due to rotation this way, and it
> would involve a bit more complexity since desktop programs would need to
> watch for pixmap changes and refresh themselves.

I think it would be better for whatever running desktop program to
manage the root pixmap ID and change gpe-setbg to just chnage the
xsettings property which would then be re-read by the desktop.

The reasoning for this is;

    - The desktop by its nature is always present so it can adapt the
      pixmap accordingly after a rotation.
    
    - Its simpler and probably faster. As the desktop is likely to be
      alpha blending icons to the background image ( most likely the
      most alpha blending to the root pixmap of any app ), it saves a
      lot of X traffic avoiding it having to ferry a pixel
      representation of the background pixmap every time it changes.
      One would assume if the desktop was managing the root pixmap it
      would already have this pixel representation locally.

    - Its how Gnome/KDE handle the root pixmap.

Also could the background for gpe-login not be entirely separate to
the background image ?

  -- Matthew
Received on Mon Feb 10 2003 - 13:15:54 EST