[3ddesktop-dev] Re: Real-time desktops representation

I don't think you can hack it into 3ddesktop. 3ddesktop works as a separate program just like gimp or something. It works by getting launched via a hot key (you put into your window manager yourself), and then taking a snapshot of your screen using imlib2. That's pretty much the same way that gimp or other programs snapshot your screen. Then it maps that snapshot to some gl surface and provides you with a quick special effect, and then closes itself. It's basically no different than a temporary screen saver with a script to grab a snapshot up front (think flipscreen 3d.. I think it might have actually been based on that at first). To get things to update while in 3d mode like beryl, you need to have all your applications writing to a x display that is mapped onto a 3d surface. That is structurally very different from how 3ddeskop works. It's probably easier to modify beryl/compiz to get there.. maybe yank just the stuff from compiz that handles mapping applications to their gl surfaces, and replace everything else with fluxbox.. but like you pointed out, it's probably easier to to hack compiz to act like fluxbox, which is also not trivial on it's own. I think no matter how you look at it, you're looking at some major undertaking...
Regarding beryl/compiz, maybe some stability will be forthcoming from beryl since it sounds like the two projects are in the process of becoming one project again. I have had versions of beryl that were pretty stable, but you're right, it is pretty much a crap shoot. I currently use beryl as my normal window manager, but I've had to plan ahead for the fact that it is going to crash. I've got it so it's fairly easy to recover without losing work when it does.. 

-Jeff


Vanger wrote:

On Thu, 16 Aug 2007 04:09:05 +0400, jeffb <jeffb@xxxxxxxx> wrote:


It's possible to do instead of 3d desktop.. but on really with it..

Thank you. Where to look at it in the code?
Beryl and Compiz are basically next generation window managers. 3ddesktop was never really designed for what you want, but Beryl and Compiz are... plus a bit more. 
Yeah-yeah-yeah.
Beryl is buggy, that's the shame that they forked. On my i965 it works like a.. Compiz-fusion is kind of more interesting, but, again, both beryl/compiz are WMs. And my favourite fluxbox is not DE, it is WM. To hack compiz to fluxbox-like is more then I can.
If you've got 3d working under linux (3ddesktop working would be a good indicator) then you can probably get beryl/compiz working.. 
glxinfo | grep render is the best indicator, you know ;) .
I like it clean and fast. If I need only mentioned above and it is possible to hack 3ddesktop into, why should I have deal with loads of python, unstable code and so on? 3ddesktop is perfectly stable and usable for me. 

--++luck

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