FreeLists / haiku-appserver / [haiku-appserver] Re: Backbuffer access

["Mikael Jansson (mailing lists)" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"DarkWyrm" <bpmagic@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
> > Okay.  I was just thinking (not really knowing how the app_server 
> > is 
> > layered) that just providing the developer with a shared area or so 
> > to 
> > use. Main point, I guess, is that /if/ someone wants to provide for 
> > such a structure for the R1 app_server, it doesn't need to be 
> > completely rebuilt, just to hook it in in the approriate layer and 
> > you're set, basically.  But, like I said - I don't know the layers 
> > very 
> > well, so it's hard for me to tell.
> It wouldn't be all that hard to hack the server, really. There are a 
> few methods I was kicking around but they all basically centered 
> around 
> hooking into a certain part of the server to notify a VNC server of a 
> screen update which could then notify any clients attached. There are 
> a 
> bunch of different ways that it could be done -- tweaking 
> DisplayDriver 
> or playing around with the DispatchMessage functions in ServerApp and 
> ServerWindow are a couple I've toyed with. They could be used to do 
> the 
> notifying of the VNC server which could then notify the client(s). 
>
Okay, that's nice.  As for the actual protocol, I'm not sure how they 
differ, but IIRC, RDP uses "glyphs" to achieve a higher throughoutput.

Would it be possible to create a proxy that sent the app_server 
commands _themselves_ over the network to another computer sitting 
there with its own app_server and then doing the drawing?  For bitmap 
data it'll be the same as a VNC-style program, but for drawing strings, 
stroking lines, fills and such, it would be a _lot_ faster.  What would 
be neded, of course, is to have app_server running in a window on a 
BeOS/X/Win32 system.  I'm not sure how flexible app_server is in this 
regard, but would it be possible to write an accellerant that drew on 
an SDL surface?  Because in that case, we'd have a highly viable cross-
platform solution.

I hope I'm not annoying you guys too much. I appreciate the work you 
do, and I don't understand all of it, so my suggestions might be a bit 
off.
--
Mikael Jansson
http://mikael.jansson.be