Re: [wmii] Enable ARGB visual for wmii frame

On Fri, Jan 26, 2007 at 01:22:43AM +0100, Martin Stubenschrott wrote:
> I'd like to use the alpha channel for setting real transparency of my
> terminal's background (rxvt-unicode), which is much better than just
> making the whole window transparent, since with ARGB support one can
> have a transparent background, but non-transparent text (like with
> pseudo transparency, but much cleaner and better working).
>
> May I quote an irc discussion how easy one can add support for the ARGB
> visual in a window manager:
> ------------
> lack| I've got real transparency working in beryl, but I hate beryl, so I want
> to figure out how to hack fluxbox to do the proper magic so I can get
> real transparency to work there too. In the man page it says: ...but
> that doesn't mean that your WM has the required kludges in place. Where
> can I learn more about these kludges?
> lack| I should add: real transparency using an ARGB visual.
> schmorp| seriously, wyh don't you use a standalone compositing manager such as
> xcompmgr?
> dyfrgi| Beryl is a composite manager, not just a window manager.
> schmorp| or beryl, or fvwm, or...
> lack| xcompmgr doesn't seem to enable ARGB in fluxbox.
> schmorp| the bug with the design of all that
> lack| I think I need fluxbox to do something "special" but I don't know what
> that is.
> schmorp| is that it requires changes to all apps
> schmorp| if fluxbox has window decorations
> schmorp| and works by reparenting
> schmorp| then the outer window must be argb, too
> schmorp| i ince wrote a patch against fvwm
> schmorp| http://data.plan9.de/fvwm-2.5-argb-visual.patch
> lack| Cool.
> schmorp| which basically gives windows the "right" visual
> schmorp| note:
> schmorp| if (fw->attr_backup.visual->class == TrueColor
> schmorp| + && fw->attr_backup.depth == 32)
> schmorp| +this is one of the most atrocious hacks i ever wrote
> schmorp| because 32 bpp does not mean argb
> schmorp| but there is *no* way to test for argb
> -------------
>
> It would be nice, if one can add this support to wmii (3.5 or 3.7), it
> wouldn't take much code, but ARGB visual opens a lot of possibilities
> for applications which use it.

If wmii would go the dwm way and remove the parent frames
completely (maybe with replacing them with non-reparented
titlewindows) such hacks won't be necessary at all...

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe >< http://suckless.org/~arg/ >< GPG key: 0D73F361