Subject: FVWM: Transparency

From: Andy Arbon <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 18:40:08 +0000

Hello,

I have a few questions about trans(parency/lucency).

Could someone tell me what's involved in using transparency for things
like title bars and panels, etc? Normally for most FVWM tweaks I just
dive into the epic man page and start playing around, but I've not had
much luck with that tactic this time.

I'm guessing the answer to this is no, but can the window manager make
an application's window transparent, or would it be the responsibility
of the individual application to support transparency?

What are the performance implications of using transparency effects? I
like to make things look as nice as possible, but only as long as it
doesn't have a bad impact on getting 'proper' work done.

Also, does anyone know where I can find other images for use on the
window buttons (max/minimise and close)? The standard ones I've got at
the moment look a bit crude.

Many thanks,

Andy

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---

From: Cameron Simpson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Jan 2003 13:56:22 +1100

On 18:40 17 Jan 2003, Andy Arbon <[email-masked]> wrote:
[...]
| I'm guessing the answer to this is no, but can the window manager make
| an application's window transparent, or would it be the responsibility
| of the individual application to support transparency?

The app has to do it. X11 itself doesn't really do transparency
(unless it has something like the XRender extension), so apps
do stuff like sniffing the root window's pixmap and so forth.

| What are the performance implications of using transparency effects? I
| like to make things look as nice as possible, but only as long as it
| doesn't have a bad impact on getting 'proper' work done.

It costs a fair bit of memory. Usually the X server has to keep the app's
background window in memory (because it's often a tinted copy of the root
pixmap, or a relocated copy because the app's top left isn't the root's
top left). But unless you move windows around a lot the performance is
ok - the server just blits the background and draws the other app stuff
on top. Example: I run transparent terminals on a 200 meg laptop here -
scrolling and editing and stuff are just fine.  Moving or resizing a
window, however, has a hit as the app refetches and hacks the backdrop.
-- 
Cameron Simpson, DoD#743        [email-masked]    http://www.zip.com.au/~cs/

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