Subject: FVWM: Re: Colour table ideas

From: Brian Sayatovic <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Aug 1997 09:00:37 -0400

If by screens, you mean the desktops controlled by the pager, then this question
is in the FVWM FAQ:  http://www.hpc.uh.edu/fvwm/FAQ.html

Here is the excerpt for your question/idea:

30) Will FVWM ever support a separate colormap for each desktop?

A: Doubtful, althougth I'd like to see it too.  I believe that it'd be
   possible to change the default colormap whenever you switch desks,
   which would give programs started when that desk is active that
   colormap, how would you deal with windows being moved across desks?

   Plus fvwm itself needs certain colormap entries for all of it's
   drawing (borders, menus, etc), so these colors would have to be
   pre-allocated in all of the colormaps, or something like that.

   While this all *might* be technically possible, I don't feel that
   it's really feasable right now (too much code bloat and
   complexity), especially since most color hog programs (ie Netscape)
   allow you to have them install private colormaps.

   I may explore this a little at some point in the future though.

I think someone at oine point also mentioned that it becomes a little
complicated for a window that spans more than one desktop (i.e., itis past the
edge, or it is two screens wide, etc.)

I think it the ideal solution is to have certain classes of windows share the
same colormap.  For example, all xterms use one map, xv another, etc...  but
still allow for private color maps.  And in addition, some smart color
allocation with the X server would make things much nicer.  I think a very
simple algorithm would be when allocating a color in a  private map, place it in
the cell that is the closest match in the other colormaps (or a standard, base
color map).  This would limit flashing.

I'd also like to mention the possibility of emulating a 24-bit x server on 256
color displays.  Use some osrt of dithering algorithm.  Use a reperating pattern
for each color that every pixel is mapped from.  Or alternatively, when a new
color needs to be allocated andno room is available, find the closest cooor,
average it with the new one, and let it use that color cell.  If you stard with
a wide-spread color spectrum for a colormap, this works out nicely.  I used a
similar algorithm to reduce all of my pixmaps to the same 128 colors.

Brian.

--
 ___________________________________________________________
|                                                           |
|  Brian Sayatovic                 (mailto:[email-masked])  |
| --------------------------------------------------------- |
|  International TechneGroup, Inc. (http://www.iti-oh.com)  |
|___________________________________________________________|

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