Re: Run in an X window - Feature request.

[Dave D. <dde...@es...>]

Daniel J Sebald <dan...@ie...> writes:

> Someone with a clearer understanding of X and the types of X windows
> or configuration that works with what gnuplot_x11 is attempting to do
> might be able to help.
>


There is really only one kind of X window. (Well, ignoring input-only
windows, and the shape extension.) Usually, everything is a window in
X. (Eg all the window manager decorations).  That's why xwininfo -tree
tends to show so many windows.


(Motif has "gadgets" as well as "widgets". I think gadgets are where
 features are drawn onto a window with lines and things, rather than
 being layers of windows. But I digress again)


Anyway... where was I... yes, windows are fundamentally very simple
things. They have size and position, as you'd expect, and depth and
colormap (based on concept of visual id)

'xdpyinfo' tells you about your X server, and what kind of visuals it
supports. Simple servers only support one visual type, but others
support more. (I recall SGI as supporting large numbers of visuals
concurrently)


Windows can have background pixmaps / background colours / cursors set
onto them - by doing this, the X server can do as much redrawing as
possible when windows get moved around, rather than having to get the
client to redraw. Eg I believe gnuplot draws the plot into a pixmap
then sets it as the background. So only time it needs to get involved
is if the window is resized.

(You may have noticed that when a gnuplot window is enlarged, you see
the plot being tiled before it gets redrawn. The Xserver first fills
new new area with the tiled background pixmap, then invites gnuplot to
repair it.)

dd
-- 
Dave Denholm              <dde...@es...>       http://www.esmertec.com