On 15.12.2011 13:15, devine-mlist@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 09:55:50 +0100 (MET), Axel Dörfler wrote:AFAIK there isn't, but there definitely should be a message broadcast, much like for font, and screen changes.There should be? Or there almost certainly is? I really hope there is because that would allow me to make the application update view and offset dimensions. At the moment the application has to be restarted.
No, he is saying there currently isn't such a message being broadcasted, but there should be.
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:12:12 +0100, Stefano Ceccherini wrote:Would be nice to have invalidation notifications too. At least that would make an application like BeScreenCapture more efficient: instead of getting a bitmap of the whole screen it would only get invalidated areas.Being able to get specific (invalidated?) areas of the screen is the reason that an accelerant for the VirtualBox addons couldn't be done IIRC.
If one was somehow constrained to writing code within the VirtualBox add-ons, then you would be right. But Haiku is Open Source, there is no such restriction. When writing new code and creating new features, one will frequently hit situations where some Haiku OS level mechanism isn't well suited or makes the feature impossible. Those are opportunities to improve and extend those mechanisms. Feeling that there is somehow this invisible border that cannot be crossed between being a Haiku "3rd party developer" and a Haiku "contributor" is not based on any actual facts. Of course, once you make the decision to change or extend some code in Haiku, it has to be discussed and agreed upon, to make sure it's the best way to go about it. That does make it more difficult, time consuming and maybe even frustrating than just writing code for yourself, but it's not impossible like if Haiku were a closed source project like BeOS was. It is even much encouraged! Haiku needs new contributors, especially those with a personal itch to scratch.
That all being said, it may take a little effort on your part to dig into the app_server code, but once you do, I promise you that broadcasting a message to all applications about decorator changes, or posting screen update regions to the accelerator, is actually quite trivial to add, you just have to find out where, or ask. :-)
Best regards, -Stephan
