xcompmgr -- Proposal 2: ARGB-window dropoff shadow

[Eeri Kask]

Am 09/25/2009 03:54 PM, Yann Droneaud schrieb:
> Le mercredi 23 septembre 2009 à 21:10 +0200, Eeri Kask a écrit :
>> Hello,
>>
>> it appears xcompmgr does not decorate windows with ARGB 32-bit
>> visuals; which at first sight seems probably a preference of
>> artistic taste than a result of engineering considerations. :-)
>>
> 
> If client window want to be transparent, putting a rectangular shadow
> around / under it is not a desired feature (ex: cairo-clock).
> 
> The same apply to XShape'd window (ex: xeyes).
> 
> IMHO, shadows should optional and a window should be able to ask for
> none through a property.
> 
> Regards.


As it looks like there really seem no apparent _technical_
restrictions involved to not draw a drop-off shadow around
transparent or heavily XShaped client windows?

Then, how to proceed in the case of "conflict of interests" if, as
opposed to some particular client window, the computer user still
prefers a shadow even around semitransparent or XShaped windows
(i.e. beyond the rectangular area (in the sense of the "X-window
attribute") enclosing the window and its border)?  :-)

Apart from the fact that semitransparent (and XShaped) windows in
general need not have a nonrectangular outer shape at all,
therefore as long as there is no property-based mechanism for
client-based shadow on-off configuration yet, and in fact even
unrelated to that, it looks quite reasonable to let the computer
user resolve this above conflict (by some xyz command line
parameter), don't you agree?  :-)

(Of course let's keep xcompmgr's default behaviour to not draw
shadows around ARGB windows but introduce a method to override this
default.)

Greetings,

    Eeri Kask