[haiku-development] Stack & Tile for Haiku
- From: Christof Lutteroth <lutteroth@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: haiku-development@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2009 20:28:43 +1300
Hello!
I spent the last days working on the Stack & Tile window manager for Haiku (the
first student project at the University of Auckland). The result is a rewrite
that, although not perfect, seems to work relatively well.
In the prototype from the screencast, the concepts were still in an early stage,
and it was not clear how some of the cases of stacking and tiling should be
handled. Interestingly, many of the problems could be solved by using the
technology from the second student project (the linear programming framework
that forms the base of the Auckland Layout Model). As a result, the current
Stack & Tile implementation uses the linprog library and its backend, the
lp_solve library. Stacking and tiling of windows is expressed in the form of
linear constraints, which are solved as the user moves and resizes the windows.
The current backend for solving linear programs, the lp_solve library (which is
already part of the Haiku repository), is not perfect. It does not exactly meet
our requirements, and it is quite bulky. My colleague and me will probably
replace it or at least trim it down at some point. But for now, it does its job.
So for all the adventurous, please feel free to download and apply the following
patches, and try out Stack & Tile yourself:
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~lutteroth/linprog.diff
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~lutteroth/stack-and-tile.diff
The first patch is an upgrade of the existing linprog library. The second patch
extends the app server with Stack & Tile. No new classes have been added to the
app server. Nearly all of the Stack & Tile logic is located in class Window.
Now a quick start guide:
All stacking and tiling functionality is activated by pressing the COMMAND key
(which is by default the ALT key) and moving or resizing windows so that they
are close together. If the COMMAND key is not pressed while moving or resizing
windows, then the app server should behave as usual. That is, the functionality
does not intrude on the user unless explicitly activated.
Stack windows by COMMAND+dragging the tab of a window onto the tab of another
window. The tabs of the windows are highlighted to indicate that they will be
stacked.
Tile your windows by snapping them together. This is done by COMMAND+dragging or
COMMAND+resizing a window so that its borders are close to the borders of one or
more other windows. The borders of the windows are highlighted to indicate that
they will be tiled.
Remember that this implementation is quite new and needs to mature. We are still
working on the stacking and tiling behavior. Sometimes the linear specification
for stacking and tiling has more than one solution, which gives the linear
solver a choice. This may appear as seemingly nondeterministic behavior.
We are happy about any feedback.
Cheers,
Christof
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