[ubuntu-art] Intrepid Panels

[Dylan McCall]

I entirely agree that something other than Nautilus could handle the
desktop background. It has always been odd to me how that is the case
now, and I bet if we had another, simpler program do it, the
background could load in much more happily than it does now.
(Furthermore, fancy visual effects for the wallpaper would not add
unnecessary dependencies to the file manager).

However, numerous issues with that being a Compiz plugin:
-Not everyone needs, wants or can have Compiz. (It also has a lot of
usability issues compared to Metacity).
-The Window Manager drawing an image to the background... Am I the
only one who finds the thought gross? That's like the kernel handling
a window system, a VGA cable used for audio, or a rhinoceros that
thinks it's a pterodactyl.
-Compiz is not the only thing that can do visual effects. The point of
a compositing window manager is to enable fancier visual effects for
the applications using it (eg: rgba instead of rgb), not to dominate
the role of generating visuals. A window manager should be focusing
entirely on placing and organizing windows in a standard way that
enhances usability in the realm of keeping things organized. Perhaps
it should be looked at this way: A window manager should be portable.
Most platforms have some visible program handling the wallpaper, such
as their file browser. Bad things happen when the window manager
suddenly decides that it, too, should handle the wallpaper -- namely,
loss of platform neutrality.

Having said that, the changing wallpapers are working fine for me over
here, I guess partly because I am not staring at them intently. I
prefer the idea of a slow moving slideshow versus a looping video; the
two are really very different, where the slideshow is meant to just
change unobtrusively while the video is built for instant
gratification (for lack of better words at the top of my mind).
One thing: Can we use relative paths for the slideshow XML files? I
found these much more complicated to install than they should be...

Bye,
-Dylan

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 10:57 AM, Cory K. <coryisatm at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> Sumit Agarwal wrote:
>  > Anyone got any estimates on CPU/GPU usage if we finagled it through
>  > Compiz?
>
>  As I said in a previous post about this, that would require taking away
>  handling of the wallpaper from Nautilus. On the surface this sounds like
>  a much more complex task then we need to take on or are even capable of
>  doing.
>
>  I really say we just nix this idea for now and have people keep an eye
>  out over this next cycle to see if things improve.
>
>
>
>  -Cory \m/
>
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