[compiz] Drawing On the Desktop

[Eckhart Pedersen]

Hi,

I am currently developing a xsnow like plugin for beryl called xglsnow 
(http://cornergraf.net/projects/xglsnow/).

I have been told(1) that my way of drawing to the desktop is not very good and 
that a better way might exist. I realize beryl is not the same as compiz, but I 
hope that the differences are not too big on this matter, if not excuse me for 
this post.

My drawing currently works like this:

PaintScreen: Paint the screen with a beryl specific mask called 
PAINT_SCREEN_ORDER_BACK_TO_FRONT_MASK

DonePaintScreen: Damage Desktop Window

PaintWindow: if desktop window then render snow

Is this really not so good? Can it be done better?

Also, the continous redrawing is rather expensive, is there a good way to 
implement some Max FPS option? I have tried without success so far(2)

Thanks in advance,
Eckhart Pedersen

(1) http://forum.go-compiz.org/viewtopic.php?t=169
(2) http://forum.beryl-project.org/viewtopic.php?t=462