Re: Wayland backend design

[Gregory Casamento]

I believe a pure GNUstep environment might be a very interesting thing to work on.   Also, which version of the Rik theme are you using here?  I also noticed the custom GWorkspace icon as well as the Mac-ish system preferences very nice.

I can't stress enough how cool this is.  One issue that has always plagued GNUstep on X is the lack of full control of the window border.  On X, for instance, the curved corners of the windows don't show properly.  With your wayland backend they seem to display perfectly.

I'm looking forward to more.   I'd also like to set up a repo where we can start building a pure GNUstep desktop environment.

GC

On Wed, Jan 13, 2016 at 8:18 PM, Gregory Casamento <address@hidden> wrote:

Hey Sergio,

I am indescribably excited about this.   It looks awesome.   Just a few little quirks!  Wayland is definitely the way forward.   Please consider putting this up on in the repo on gna.org as this is an awesome development.

Gregory Casamento
GNUstep Maintainer/Lead Developer
greg_casamento (Skype)
(240)274-9630

> On Jan 13, 2016, at 8:09 PM, Sergio L. Pascual <address@hidden> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> The past few nights, I've been playing around the idea of writing a
> Wayland backend for GNUstep (this is my first time hacking on GS,
> though I've contributed to other FOSS projects), first as a way of
> getting to know Wayland, and later to explore the possibility of a pure
> GNUstep Desktop Environment.
>
> So far, I've managed to write a functional prototype (consisting of a
> GS backend and a slightly modified Weston shell) which implements some
> basic window management. If you're curious, you can see a video from a
> screen capture here: https://sinrega.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/gnu
> step-wayland.webm
>
> It's a bit quirky, and the code is ugly, but as a prototype it serves
> its purpose. Now I'm considering coding a clean implementation, if no
> one else is already working on it.
>
> As GNUstep already has a Cairo backend, making it write to a Wayland
> surface, showing something on the screen, is easy. The hard part comes
> when you want to treat that surfaces as windows in the traditional
> desktop paradigm, as the basic Wayland protocol lacks the functionality
> required for this.
>
> So, I see three options for a GNUstep Wayland backend:
>
>  1. Use only the basic Wayland protocol. Not very useful, except for
> very specific uses.
>
>  2. Use Wayland and Weston's XDG protocols. This would allow to
> implement some window management, without window levels, ordering, nor
> absolute window positioning. Also, all features which depend on
> obtaining the location of the mouse would be broken too.
>
>  3. Use Wayland, Weston's XDG and some specific extensions, with a
> GNUstep-aware Weston shell. This would allow to implement all the
> functionality, and some nifty features like a static MainMenu and a
> Dock-like panel.
>
> Personally, I'd go with 3. People only wanting to run a single app
> would be still able to use the x11 backend, while the wayland backend
> could be used to explore the possibility of a dedicated Desktop
> Environment.
>
> Any thoughts on this?
>
> Sergio.
>
>
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--

Gregory Casamento
GNUstep Lead Developer / OLC, Principal Consultant
http://www.gnustep.org - http://heronsperch.blogspot.com
http://ind.ie/phoenix/