Re: [xougen] Any plans to keep up with Longhorn?

[>> G-LiTe /]

Maurizio Colucci wrote:

> Hello dear developers,
>  
Hi. (Not a Xouvert developer though)

> I heard Longhorn is going to have vector graphics only, dropping bitmaps 
> completely. I was wondering if you have any plans to counteract to (and 
> possibly improve) those features.
>  
Modern Gnome and KDE themes already use mostly vector graphics for icons.
Alot of themes in the Gnome-Themes-Extras package are based on the 
Smooth GTK+ engine. Cairo also has a GTK+ engine in development that 
looked like it could mimic the smooth engine for the most part. So GTK+ 
could be vector based too in the future.

> To be precise, every graphic element (which means every widget, window frame, 
> icon, text) 
>
> 1. will be vector defined.
>  
Cario...

> 2. will be rendered using the hardware primitives of the cards (3d cards are
>    mandatory in Longhorn, except for palmtops I presume).
>    That is, Longhorn will call the card's primitives to draw lines and   
>    texture-mapped poligons, no software blitter.
>  
XRender... maybe some in Cairo too.

> 3. will support translucency (aka alpha-blending).
>  
Keith is working on it. See some of the previous posts. Name was aXe 
last time I checked but they were discussing a name change iirc.

> 4. will use z-buffering (don't ask me what for... futhermore translucency and    
>    z-buffers don't mix well AFAIK).
>  
No idea about that

> 5. will be dimensioned relative to the screen size, not to pixels, so as to be 
>    invariant of the screen resolution. So, when you increase the  
>    resolution, the bitmaps won't get smaller, and the lines will not become
>    thinner.
>  
Either I'm misunderstanding the whole DPI thing or that was a flaw in 
Windows to start with. When you change resolution the DPI should change 
along. X does that I think. (Or that is pango, either way, Windows 
doesn't). The Gnome desktop measures almost everything in points. That's 
pretty much what you were looking for I guess.

> Useful or not:
>
> 1. these features will become a must in order to compete with Longhorn. I can 
> already hear Windows fans "linux has still bitmapped graphics" adding to the 
> already known complains.
>  
Don't think so. If they REALLY want to switch to vector graphics, I 
suggest they get some SVG support in IE first. Linux is way ahead in 
that area if you ask me.

> 2. web browsers will HAVE to supply those features (translucency and vector 
> graphics) in order to be XAML compliant.
>  
If any web browser doesn't supply translucency, it's, again, IE. Think 
PNG, CSS, etc...
SVG doesn't work in IE either without the adobe plugin. (iirc)

> 3. It seems to me that these features must be designed into the architecture 
> right from the start. For example, a dependency on openGL seems mandatory.
>  
Not all of it. OpenGL acceleration would be cool. If you build XRender 
on top of OpenGL I think that'd already improve alot. Wouldn't know if 
it's possible.

> The KDE developers said it is not up to them, and that little is possible 
> unless the X server supports those features.
>  
It is partially. Eventually they'll have to use Cairo on QT and whatnot. 
GTK+ has some support for it already.

> Do you plan to support those kind of things? DO you plan to improve them?
>  
I hope so. :)

> Thanks to everyone!
> Maurizio
>