Re: Display server and window interaction

[Dennis Leeuw]

Pascal Bourguignon wrote:

> > Date: Thu, 11 Apr 2002 16:40:12 -0600
> > From: Adam Fedor <address@hidden>
> >
> > Fred Kiefer wrote:
> > > With the new split of the back end functionality a new class
> > > GSDisplayServer was introduced. As we may in principle have a lot of
> > > those, we must find the correct one for a given window, before we send
> > > it any window operation. This happens mostly in the NSWindow.m file and
> >
> >
> > I'd actually argue to opposite. There are very few, if any, reasons to
> > have more than one display server per application. Perhaps a groupware
> > application might find this useful (although having a non-graphic server
> > talking to separate GUI frontends via DO would probably work better).
> > OSX and OpenStep don't even have a provision for this.
> >
> > I think I should just make GSDisplayServer a singleton and have a static
> > variable "GSApplicationDisplayServer" hold the id to it.
>
>
> Quite  on the  contrary, there  are all  the reasons  to  have several
> displays and more than on for any application.  I currently have three
> computers on my  desk, and with all X applications,  I can put various
> windows on any and all of  their displays. Actually, with emacs, I can
> even do it dynamically, and open a new window with :
>
>      M-x make-frame-on-display RET triton:0.0 RET
>
> and  then   use  the  screen  of   my  laptop  while   working  on  my
> workstation. Why would you want to  prevent me to do that with GNUstep
> applications?
>
> It's even so  well designed that there are as  many insertion point as
> there are  displays (input devices),  and therefore I can  easily type
> with my QWERTY  keyboard of my workstation text in  English and at the
> same time,  type with  my AZERTY  keyboard of my  laptop same  text in
> French. Yes, I have two  hands, and two hemispheres... ;-) Ok, perhaps
> I don't  do it at the  same time, but I  don't see any  reason why one
> could  not  configure his  software  to  run  and interface  with  any
> hardware one happen to have  on his network.  Let's avoid "The network
> is the computer." be only dead words.
>
> The GNUstep API allow for  several screens.  Why not allow the passing
> of several  -display host:D.S options  to any GNUstep  application and
> thus  have the  possibility to  map NSWindows  onto X  windows  on any
> screen  whatever the  X  server.  We  already  have a  "pointer" to  a
> window, just make it a little bigger and point to a X server too.
>
> For OPENSTEP,  while it  did not handle  several -NXHost, at  least it
> accepted one  like -display of  simple X applications, and  while this
> was not  a feature directly implemented  by the AppKit,  it would have
> been trivial for any Application to connect to several DPS servers and
> have windows on them. As trivial as it is with X.
>
> And  if  it  really was  VERY  few  reasons,  if  there was  only  ONE
> application  that would  profit of  it,  say, like  an application  to
> display flights departures and arrival on fifty screens in an airport,
> I think it  would be a great improvement over the  actual state of the
> art  and BSOD  generaly  displayed  on these  screens.   Think of  the
> millions of travelers who would thank you to allow us to know when and
> where their planes will leave or arrive!

Amen!
I agree here, although I normally don't say anything about coding things.
I thought Fred's idea was brilliant. Just my humble opinion...

Dennis


>
>
> --
> __Pascal_Bourguignon__              (o_ Software patents are endangering
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