The RENDER Extension: The Wait Hurtles On

augros writes: "Keith Packard, responsible for the X RENDER extension, is still working diligently on the X component that may one day make X a rival to other bleeding edge windowing systems (...ahem, *Quartz*). It's thanks to RENDER that 'xterm -fa arial' gives you a sleek anti-aliased terminal and k-jofol can offer you those funky-shaped skins. But how long will it be before X wields true-translucent windows? The cheap hacks (eterm) have lasted way too long. Read Packard's article; he goes over the details of what will need to be done. If you're interested in the current level of development check out Packard's screenshot. I tried his code myself and had to do tweak it a bit before the window even mapped. He claims it worked as true-transparency on his box, albeit painfully slow, however all I got was alpha-blended rectangles on an unrefreshing background." And watch this space for an XFree86-related interview, too :)

Re:Take 'em All

[Per Wigren]

Yeah, I saw them live on Holidays In The Sun, Morecambe, UK this summer... Great concert! ;)

Kinda offtopic though.. :-P

Kjofol

[Howie]

Isn't it the SHAPE extension that allows Kjofol to do funky shaped skins? Isn't that what oclock and xeyes has been doing since at least 1992 or so?

Re:Kjofol

[augros]

of course you're absolutely right. sorry, wasn't thinking when i was typing. kinda like the guy who thinks his mule is pregnant. gosh, that's a little embarrassing since i'm heavily using SHAPE in my current development. RENDER is only for anti-aliased fonts, alpha blending and soon other geometric thingies (polygons i think). oops.

Re:Kjofol

[mini me]

I've never used Kjofol under X, but I'm assuming it uses render to make the program's edges anti-aliased instead of the hard shapes seen in programs like xeyes.

Re:Enlighten me

[augros]

those are unfortunately not TRUE translucent menus -- which are however good enough for menus. you see, that theme merely takes a screenshot of the desktop and alpha blends it with the image of the menu to be laid down. since menus are override-redirect there is little chance of the background changing while they are there, which creates the illusion of transparency. (try running an xterm listing out a VERY long file, or compiling somthing, behind it. it won't seem so see-through anymore. the RENDER extension is working on this.

Re:Enlighten me

[augros]

no, i submitted a different screenshot on the same site. how /. screwed it up i'll be darned if i know. check out the REAL screenshot at http://www.eax.com/render/screen.png

Re:mozilla

[pdh11]

I can't believe that it is soooo hard to do a reasonable AA (no aa between 8-14px, only AA the "round" places and not simply blur the whole letter which looks awful)

any comments on this?

It probably depends what you're used to. To me, whole-letter blurring looks "right" and Windows' blurring of the round places looks "wrong". And 8-14px is exactly when I want the text anti-aliased!

Peter