[compiz] Zoom enhancements

[Kristian Lyngstøl]

I'll be working on zoom during Google summer of code, to get it to
work better with existing accessibility software. Basicly get it to
communicate with tools like Orca.

Because this relies on input enabled zoom, there are some issues I
like to clear up before I start. I don't want to directly base my work
on any of the two publicly available zoom plugins. This means I'll be
creating a new plugin, using as much of the work done in the existing
zoom plugins as possible. Though zoom is a fairly straight-forward
plugin in general.

The plugin will initialy use the same technique Beryl's input enabled
zoom uses, but the idea is to design it so it can use IR if(and when)
it's available. That shouldn't be too hard, luckily. I also have some
ideas of how to have "follow focus" input enabled zoom even without
IR. The idea is to allow several methods of doing roughly the same
things, based on what's available.

So far, this project is very much in the planning phase, coding isn't
scheduled to start until May 28th. As such, I have not yet gotten
familiar with Orca, and the technical details of how I'll get Orca and
Compiz to cooperate have yet to be defined. I do intend to keep this
entierly in the plugin-code, and if possible, I'll use dbus. One of
the main goals will be mainstream inclusion (Which is why I'm bringing
this up now), regardless of what exactly we end up calling mainstream.

I'm interested in comments from the people who've worked most with the
existing zoom plugins. I know the ideal solution would be to "wait for
IR", but that's just not an option. Like I said, I'll be doing the
next best thing: Write the plugin so it'll support IR when it's
available. I have a rough idea of how I'll do this and I don't think
it'll be too much work.

David; I know you have some opinions on the matter. I've also heard
rumours of there beeing an IR-enabled zoom plugin, if that's true, I'd
like to have a look at it if possible. Or just a few pointers of what
you see an IR enabled zoom plugin doing that the non-IR equivalent
can't, beyond the most obvious.

Also, I've followed the IR thread on the X.org list, but it seems to
have gone silent. Have anyone done any work on IR since then that I'm
missing?

-- 
Regards,
Kristian