My little personal wishlist <g>

And again he is posting

So while playing around to learn more about the libSDL, I found some
things, wich are temporarily not possible. As far as I see some people
send things they would like to see in SDL to this list, so I thought
about sending my “personal little wishlist”, too. Maybe there are some
ideas you could think of integrating to SDL:

(1) I would like to be able to set up an SDL-Surface, running in
windowed mode, but without any Frame or Headline of the Windowmanager
(2) I would like this one to accept colorkeys and alpha blending

This would enable one to create good looking ergonomic Applications by
using SDL.

CyA

Sascha

And again he is posting

So while playing around to learn more about the libSDL, I found some
things, wich are temporarily not possible. As far as I see some people
send things they would like to see in SDL to this list, so I thought
about sending my “personal little wishlist”, too. Maybe there are some
ideas you could think of integrating to SDL:

(1) I would like to be able to set up an SDL-Surface, running in
windowed mode, but without any Frame or Headline of the Windowmanager
(2) I would like this one to accept colorkeys and alpha blending

This would enable one to create good looking ergonomic Applications by
using SDL.

Everything but alpha blending can already be done with SDL’s platform-dependent
hooks into the window manager. Take a look at the GTk demo on the demos page:
http://www.libsdl.org/demos.html

Alpha blending windows is a function of the window manager, and isn’t really
in SDL’s hands.

See ya!
-Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software

(1) I would like to be able to set up an SDL-Surface, running in
windowed mode, but without any Frame or Headline of the Windowmanager
(2) I would like this one to accept colorkeys and alpha blending

You can’t get alpha-blended windows in X11 at all (though Keith Packard is
working on it – look at his home page for cool screenshots).
You can get shaped windows in X11 using the SHAPE extension which is
practically always there. You’ll have to create the window yourself and
pass the ID in SDL_WINDOWID, but it should work. Make it override-redirect
and you won’t have any decoration either. Not that it’s a good idea.
And it’s slow.

This would enable one to create good looking ergonomic Applications by
using SDL.

Don’t confuse ergonomics with what looks cool. The average Linux desktop
of today has a lot to learn from studies made the last couple of
decades in human-computer interfaces.

Alpha blending windows is a function of the window manager, and isn’t really
in SDL’s hands.

Actually it’s a X server thing, or more precisely missing therefrom

Everything but alpha blending can already be done with SDL’s platform-dependent
hooks into the window manager. Take a look at the GTk demo on the demos page:
http://www.libsdl.org/demos.html

I looked at the gtk demo. The moving shape-hole in the window seems to
be made
by gtk and not by SDL. The SDL-Application has the framework of the
windowmanager. This wasn’t quite what I meant (sorry about my english -
I am
working on it). I meant to create an “independant” SDL_Surface as the
main
screen, without any framework of a windowmanager or stuff, because this
would
take the main advantage of SDL - its platform independency.

Alpha blending windows is a function of the window manager, and isn’t really
in SDL’s hands.

Hmm. I thought an SDL_Surface is just representing a memoryblock in the
graphic
hardware memory. There should be the information about what is currently
on the
screen and so - this was my guess - it should be possible to read out,
what
color the pixels have. Maybe I didn’t quite understood the idea of an
SDL_Surface ?

I was thinking about this, because I wanted to try to set up an platform
independent GUI and this would be usefull for this. As long as I do not
find a
way how to handle this I have to live with the KDE or Windows
Window-frame I see
around the Application based on my GUI :slight_smile:

CyA,

Sascha

I looked at the gtk demo. The moving shape-hole in the window seems to
be made
by gtk and not by SDL. The SDL-Application has the framework of the
windowmanager. This wasn’t quite what I meant (sorry about my english -
I am
working on it). I meant to create an “independant” SDL_Surface as the
main
screen, without any framework of a windowmanager or stuff, because this
would
take the main advantage of SDL - its platform independency.

Even though SDL is platform-independent, it’s still running on the native
graphics environment, be it a windowing system like X11 or GDI, or a console
like the Linux framebuffer console. SDL tries to be well behaved in whatever
environment it is running. You can override SDL’s default behavior in window
environments, but you need to know how to do it for each environment your
program will run in, and access the windowing information via the SDL_syswm
API.

Hmm. I thought an SDL_Surface is just representing a memoryblock in the
graphic hardware memory.

Not necessarily. In most windowing environments, SDL has no access to the
raw video memory - this is managed by the graphics server. Instead, SDL
provides off-screen memory and asks the graphics server to update the
screen in whatever fashion it can, using the offscreen image.

See ya!
-Sam Lantinga, Lead Programmer, Loki Entertainment Software