I have several nested X Windows - let's say - a scrollable window within a scrollable window (see the example below). In such case the main window contains (at least) the major scroll bars and the (major) drawing area they control. This drawing area on its turn contains (at least) a scrollable window batch - a (minor) main window, containing a scroll bar and minor drawing area.
During live scrolling of an inner drawing area the redraw procedure messes up, because I am using the XCopyArea to speed the process and move the contents that are valid and invoke the actual redraw routine for just the newly appeared content. This works fine when the inner drawing batch is by itself, but when nested within another one a problem occurs - when the inner scrolling-batck is partially visible (i.e. the major drawing area is scrolled) redrawing of newly appeared contents is clipped from the major drawing area and never actually redrawn, but considered to be so. When on the next scroll XCopyArea gets this supposedly-redrawn area it is actually empty. Finally this empty area show up on the partially visible inner scrolling-batch and it is empty. On the first general redraw message they are fixed.
If I can obtain the clipping mask for what is actually visible from (my) inner drawing area I can adjust the XCopyArea() call and redraw call and overcome the problem without the plan "B" which is redrawing all contents on each scroll bar movement.
Example: Developing a plugin for Mozilla Firefox and needing to determine the region that describes the visible area of "my" window, i.e. the one that is passed from the Mozilla system as plugin viewport.
If its really an X Window you get, and not a widget from some specific toolkit (like GTK+ maybe?) then you can use the XGetWindowAttributes function call.
This fills out a provided XWindowAttributes structure, which includes integers for the x and y position of the window as well as its width and height and other useful facts.
But in reality I think you are probably using the Mozilla plugin API inherited from Netscape, aka NSAPI, and in that case what you get is a call to your function NPP_SetWindow() at least once (and again if necessary because something changed) with a structure which contains the information you're looking for. Try looking at http://www.mozilla.org/projects/plugins/ for more information about the APIs you should use.
Related
I have a window in mono gtk#, which has lot of VBoxes & HBoxes. These boxes contain some buttons, labels, and some other widgets also. Now I need to make this window alone to transparent.
I created one drawingArea by referring zetcode page.
But inside this drawing area I'm not able to do the arrangements of my widgets, one Move function is available, but it is not much use for me. So how do I do widget arrangement neatly inside a drawingArea?
You can see the video of the problem below. When I press the Minimize button, the screen disappears, but when you put the other window on top without pressing the Minimize button, the screen will not be covered and it will always float on top. This problem did not occur in Windows 7, but it occurs after upgrading to Windows 10.
Problem video
I would like to know the DirectX initialization code for the function or function argument related to this problem. (As far as I know, this game uses DirectX 9.)
Additional Information
Based on Castorix's advice, I used the Spy ++ program to test it. Below is the result screen.
The problematic program consisted of two windows, a parent window and a child window. The parent window style consists of WS_CAPTION, WS_MINIMIZE, WS_VISIBLE, WS_CPLISIBLINGS, WS_SYSMENU, WS_OVERLAPPED, WS_MINIMIZEBOX, WS_MAXIMIZEBOX, 0x00008000. And the child window style consists of WS_CHILDWINDOW, WS_VISIBLE, WS_BORDER.
Additional Information 2
If you look carefully at the above video, when the game window goes under the notepad window, the game title bar is hidden, but you can see that the game screen is always on top instead of just being covered.
I would like to draw some sort of window on top of all the other windows. For example, to display some debugging infos (like conky) or things like a timer.
The main thing is that I would like to able to continue using the other windows while using it (the events go through transparently).
I've tried doing it with pygtk, pyqt and others but can't find a way to make it a real overlay with no event capture.
Is there some low-level x11 solution?
I think the Composite-extension-approach will not work when a compositing manager is running (and thus Composite's overlay window is already used).
Since you explicitly mention "no event capture":
The SHAPE extension allows to set some different shapes for a window. Version 1.1 of this extension added the "input" shape. Just setting this to an empty region should pretty much do what you want.
Some concrete example of exactly what I think you ask for can be found in Conky's source code: http://sources.debian.net/src/conky/1.10.3-1/src/x11.cc/?hl=769#L764-L781
Edit: Since you said that you didn't find anything in Gtk (well, PyGtk), here is the function that you need in Gtk: https://developer.gnome.org/gdk3/stable/gdk3-Windows.html#gdk-window-input-shape-combine-region
You might need Composite extension + GetOverlayWindow request:
Version 0.3 of the protocol adds the Composite Overlay Window, which
provides compositing managers with a surface on which to draw without
interference. This window is always above normal windows and is always
below the screen saver window. It is an InputOutput window whose width
and height are the screen dimensions. Its visual is the root visual
and its border width is zero. Attempts to redirect it using the
composite extension are ignored. This window does not appear in the
reply of the QueryTree request. It is also an override redirect
window. These last two features make it invisible to window managers
and other X11 clients. The only way to access the XID of this window
is via the CompositeGetOverlayWindow request. Initially, the Composite
Overlay Window is unmapped.
CompositeGetOverlayWindow returns the XID of the Composite Overlay
Window. If the window has not yet been mapped, it is mapped by this
request. When all clients who have called this request have terminated
their X11 connections the window is unmapped.
Composite managers may render directly to the Composite Overlay
Window, or they may reparent other windows to be children of this
window and render to these. Multiple clients may render to the
Composite Overlay Window, create child windows of it, reshape it, and
redefine its input region, but the specific arbitration rules followed
by these clients is not defined by this specification; these policies
should be defined by the clients themselves.
C api : XCompositeGetOverlayWindow
PyGTK Solution:
I think the composite and shapes X extensions are sufficiently ubiquitous and shall assume here that they are active on your system. Here's PyGtk code for this:
# avoid title bar and standard window minimize, maximize, close buttons
win.set_decorated(False)
# make the window stick above all others (super button will still override it in the z-order, which is fine)
win.set_keep_above(True)
# make events pass through
region = cairo.Region(cairo.RectangleInt(0, 0, 0, 0))
my_window.input_shape_combine_region(region)
win.show_all()
# set the entire window to be semi-transparent, if we like
win.set_opacity(0.2)
Basically what this does is tell Gtk that other than pixel (0,0) the entire window my_window should not be considered part of itself in terms of event propagation. That in turn, according to my current understanding means that when the pointer moves and clicks, the events go to the underlying window under the pointer position, as if my_window was not there.
Caveat:
This does allow your overlay window being the focus window (due to user-solicited window switching or just because it pops up and gets the focus when your application starts). Which means that for example, keyboard events will still undesirably go to it up until the user has clicked through it to make it lose focus in favor of whatever window is under the cursor. I would likely use the approach described here to iron out this aspect.
If there's a different and proper approach for making a portion of the screen "display stuff but not receive events", without building an oddball window like above over it, I'm happy to learn about it.
I assume that one's particular desktop environment (gnome, unity, etc. on linux) may interfere with this solution depending on version and configuration, on some occasions.
I have an application that uses a non-decorated window (no title bar and so on, it's eventually intended to be a full-screen application). It also has one-pixel-wide line images around the outside to form a natural border with the outside world.
When I run this application and the Window gets its default position (i.e., not at the (0,0) origin), the borders are clearly visible.
However, when I perform a this.Move(0, 0) in the constructor of the main window to make sure the window is positioned correctly, the upper-right pixels seem to disappear thus:
Ignore the Act text in that capture, it's actually the Activities menu under Gnome desktop. The actual upper-left pixel of the window is where those two red lines would meet.
Does anyone know what could be causing this issue? Is it possibly something to do with the Gnome Shell extensions taking control of that area?
The missing pixels are an artifact of the way gnome-shell does rounded rectangles for its windows.
If you really want to change it, you can edit the file /usr/share/gnome-shell/theme/gnome-shell.css. Look for the CSS selector .panel-corner and set -panel-corner-radius to 0px. This will cause the windows to have square corners rather than rounded ones. You will probably need to restart gnome-shell after making the change by pressing Alt-F2 and enter the r command.
Whether that edit will survive a gnome-shell (or even a theme) update is unsure, you may have to put into place something that keeps it at the value you want (or install an extension to do that for you).
That is how gnome-shell renders the top corners of the main monitor, it's a rounded corner, just not very visible with black on black. Changing this rendering is not something an application should do.
If your application is supposed to be full screen instead of just positioned at the corner, you could request gnome-shell to do that with Window.fullscreen(). Do not rely on always being full screen though: the window manager can decide otherwise.
I am writing a Xlib app where I want the window to be centered. I have used XMoveWindow with (desktopWidth - width) / 2, (desktopHeight - height) / 2 and it is roughly in the right place.
However the problem is that width and height are the client area, not the total area. Is there any way for me to get the total area of the window?
I need to use Xlib because I am using Glx and OpenGL. I don't want to use SDL, nor have a bulky graphics library.
There are various ways to go about this, depending on why you are doing it. The first two are "officially supported" by most window managers and described in specs, and then it descends into fragile hacks.
Semantic
The specs encourage you to use _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE rather than setting the position, if it makes sense to do so. See http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.3.html#id2507144
For example, a DIALOG type (or a window with the WM_TRANSIENT_FOR hint set) will usually be centered on its parent window or on the screen, and the _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_SPLASH (splashscreen) type will usually be centered on the screen. "Usually" here means "sensible window managers probably center it, and people using weird window managers are not your problem, let them suffer."
(Another hint along the same lines, though not what you want here, is _NET_WM_STATE_FULLSCREEN, which avoids manually sizing/positioning in order to be fullscreen.)
If semantic hints work, the window manager code to handle the positioning is hopefully smarter than anything one can easily code by hand, for example it might deal with multihead setups. Setting the proper semantic type may also allow the WM to be smart in other ways, beyond positioning.
Gravity
If there's no semantic hint in the specs that helps you, then you can center by hand. It's important to note that window managers are allowed to ignore a manual position request and some of them will. Some may only honor the request if you set the USPosition flag in WM_NORMAL_HINTS (this flag is supposed to be set only if the user explicitly requested the position, for example with a -geometry command line option). Others may ignore the request always. But, you can probably ignore WMs that do this; the user chose to use that WM.
The way you compensate for the window decorations (the titlebar, etc.) is to use the win_gravity field of WM_NORMAL_HINTS, which is originally in the ICCCM (see http://tronche.com/gui/x/icccm/sec-4.html#s-4.1.2.3) but better-specified in an implementation note in the EWMH: http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/latest/ar01s09.html#id2570420
For WM_NORMAL_HINTS see http://tronche.com/gui/x/xlib/ICC/client-to-window-manager/wm-normal-hints.html#XSizeHints (note: the type of the property is WM_SIZE_HINTS and the name of the property is WM_NORMAL_HINTS, so there are two different atom names involved).
To center, you would set the win_gravity to Center, which allows you to position the center of the window (including its decorations) instead of the top-left corner.
win_gravity is not often used and is likely to be buggy in some window managers because nobody bothered to code/test it, but it should work in the more mainstream ones.
Update, possible confusion point: There are other "gravities" in the X protocol, specifically the CreateWindow request lets you set a "bit_gravity" and "win_gravity"; these are different from the XSizeHints.win_gravity. The CreateWindow gravities describe how the contents (pixels/subwindows) of a window are handled when the window is resized.
Hacks based on guessing decoration size
It's a fragile hack, but... you can try to figure out the decoration size and then incorporate that into your positioning.
To get the size of the window decorations, one way is the _NET_FRAME_EXTENTS hint, see http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/latest/ar01s05.html#id2569862
For older-school window managers (but not the fancy new compositing ones, though those hopefully support _NET_FRAME_EXTENTS) the window decorations are an X window, so you can get your parent window and look at its size.
The problem with both of these approaches is that you have to map the window before the decorations are added, so you have to map; wait to get the MapNotify event; then get the decoration size; then move the window. This will unfortunately cause user-visible flicker (the window will initially appear and then move). I don't think there's a way to get the window decoration size without mapping first.
Descending further into the realm of awful hacks, you could assume that for windows after the first one you map, the decorations will match previously-mapped windows. (Not that this is a sound assumption: different kinds of windows may have different decorations.)
Implementation note: keep in mind that the decoration window can be destroyed at any time, which would cause an X error in any outstanding Xlib requests you have that mention that window and by default exit your program. To avoid this, set the X error handler when touching windows that don't belong to your client.
Override redirect
Using override redirect is a kind of bazooka with bad side effects, and not at all a good idea if your goal is just to center a window.
If you set the override redirect flag when creating a window, then the window manager won't manage its size, position, stacking order, decorations, or map state (the window manager's redirection of ConfigureRequest and MapRequest is overridden).
This is a really bad idea for anything the user would think of as a window. It's usually used for tooltips and popup menus. If you set override redirect on a window, then all the normal window management UI will be broken, the stacking order will end up basically random (the window will tend to get stuck on top or on bottom, or worse get in an infinite-loop restack fight with another client).
But, the override-redirected window won't have decorations or be touched by the WM, so you can surefire center it with no interference.
(If you just want no decorations, use a semantic type like SPLASH or use the "MWM" hints, don't use override redirect.)
Summary
The short answer is set the semantic hint if any is applicable, and otherwise use XSizeHints.win_gravity=Center.
You can kind of see why people use toolkits and SDL ;-) lots of weird historical baggage and corner cases in the client-to-window-manager interaction generally, setting window positions is just the beginning of the excitement!
win_gravity is not often used and is likely to be buggy in some window managers because nobody bothered to code/test it, but it should work in the more mainstream ones.
Apparently Unity haven't implemented this. Testing shows that XCB_GRAVITY_STATIC is not respected and by taking a quick look at Unity source code I could not find code implementing this part of the specification.