[compiz] Re: Plugin Interface for Decoations

[Shawn Starr]

Hello 

On May 2, 2007 03:50:50 pm David Reveman wrote:
> On Mon, 2007-04-30 at 17:24 +0200, Patrick Niklaus wrote:
> > I realized some major problems with this approach. To give you a
> > better idea of what I'm actually talking about, take a look at this
> > schema:
> > http://media.beryl-project.org/Decoration-Schema.png
> >
> > As you can see KWD, GWD and Emerald would run in the same
> > applications, as plugins.
> > This might cause problems because the main loops of Qt and Gtk are
> > conflicting here, which was actually one of the reasons why the
> > decorator was not a own plugin in compiz.
> >
> > Another problem is the settings backend. To integrate into the desktop
> > each plugin uses its own backend. For example the emerald plugin uses
> > ini/gkey files + libemeraldengine but GWD gconf + metacity functions.
> > So basically we would end up with a complete window decorator, ported
> > to a plugin, which is not really what I had in mind.
> >
> > An alternative would be, remaining the current structure of having
> > several decorator running as an own application and expand emerald to
> > an highly-customizeable and extentable decorator, which relies on
> > plugin architecture. The main goal of that decorator would be to
> > provide an independently theme and other rather experimental things
> > like animations.
> >
> > This architecture is shown in this schema:
> > http://media.beryl-project.org/Decoration-Schema2.png
> >
<snip>
>
> You're welcome to improve emerald, rewrite it or write a completely new
> decorator, I'm definitely not going to stand in the way of that.
> However, I suggest that you avoid duplicating work when not necessary
> and avoid creating alternatives to existing solutions.
>
> libdecoration contains code that is used by all decorators. If you find
> some code that makes sense for more than one decorator, it likely makes
> sense to put that code in libdecoration.
>
> What's missing in current decorators? The following is what I think is
> missing and how it's most properly fixed.

One thing that the old original Emerald window decorator did was support 
button effects, some of these effects like the glow effect. I don't know if 
Emerald-2 or compiz deal with specific button effects themselves?

> - David
>

Shawn.