Documentation?

[Peter Harris]

Patrick O'Donnell wrote:
>> From: Jim Gettys <jg at freedesktop.org>
>> Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:25:26 -0400
>>
>> We did fix it, with composite, in a way better than before.  You don't
>> have to run a compositing manager that does anything visual at all; you
>> don't have to have one iota of transparency, drop shadows, or even
>> anti-aliased fonts.
> 
> It's not really the same, though, is it?  It's a bit disingenuous to
> claim that it's a simple substitution, when in the one case the
> application merely sets a bit in the window attributes and in the
> other we have to find and configure (or write?  I'm still not clear on
> that) a whole separate module with its attendant learning curve.  And
> we have to make sure our customers install and configure it properly
> -- not an easy task, I can tell you!

In my case (XFCE), it's as simple as cracking open the "Window Manager
Tweaks" control panel and hitting the "Enable display compositing"
checkbox. I assure you, this is far easier for your customers than the
old method of enabling BackingStores and SaveUnders (which involved
editing configuration files by hand, then restarting the X server -
without which your 'merely sets a bit' would be ignored). I believe
GNOME and KDE have an equivalent setting, enabled by default on many
distributions.

To be fair, you may have customers still using CDE or OpenLook. But
those same customers are likely still using a SaveUnders capable X
server too.

Peter Harris
-- 
               Open Text Connectivity Solutions Group
Peter Harris                    http://www.opentext.com/connectivity
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