Hi, On Mon, Oct 28, 2002 at 10:34:39AM -0800, Matthew Tedder wrote: > X Windows is like postscript in the sense that it sends instructions > on how to build a screen. This enables scaling, 3D, etc. etc. and > less potential band-width utilization. How many bytes does it take to > send a string of text versus the bytes required for high color-depth > pixel grids? This also allows for use of accelerated 3D on client > hardware. Windows absolutely cannot provide these capabilities. That's all great, but apparently X's font support is limited enough to force an application such as, say, Mozilla, to do all font rendering client-side, sending text pixel-by-pixel over the X channel. 'Modern' toolkits like GTK+ and QT tend to work with X on a /very/ low-level basis; they just request every event, including mouse movements, and do all rendering at the client side. Whether that's because they want to be 'cross-platform' or because X doesn't live up to its promises, or the toolkit developers just don't understand X well enough, I don't know. I do know that get sceptical of that 'X is so efficient' cheering when I see a random X application being dependent on freetype2. fs-xtt is supposed to take care of that! <pipe dream> Looking back, it would have been great if X would have allowed a separate (widget) rendering server, just like it allows a separate font server and a separate window manager, making the X protocol more widget-oriented instead of pixel-oriented. Just like the protocol between clients and window managers could evolve without affecting the X protocol or forcing every client to manage its own window decorations, the protocol between clients and widget server could have evolved to match modern GUI needs without obsoleting X or affecting older applications. A standard data protocol between applications and their widgets. Wouldn't it have been wonderful. Imagine switching between GTK+ and QT without even a recompile! As easy as switching window managers! </pipe dream> Cheers, Emile. -- E-Advies / Emile van Bergen | emile@e-advies.info tel. +31 (0)70 3906153 | http://www.e-advies.info
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