nanogui@linuxhacker.org

: >I'm pretty sure that the VNC client doesn't work for 
: >other than 8bpp.  I mean VNC 8bpp, not Nano-X.  So
: >you can still get the VNC 24bpp working on your palettized
: >device, Microwindows will convert the colors for you.  However,
: >there's still some work to be done in the VNC client.
: 
: OK, I'd be interested in knowing what combinations do or
: don't work. It may be something simple like I am not picking
: up the right nano-X parameter to set the VNC screen mode. 

The issue here is fundamentally simple, but could get
complex in testing:  the VNC client talks to the VNC server
using the RFB protocol, and part of the setup for that
involves telling the server what pixel depth it would
like to see the screen contents in.  The servers IIRC
must handle all bit depths.   After the VNC client
gets the screen contents, it then calls Nano-X functions
to display those colors.  These two pixel depths
are different, and don't need to be the same.  In other
words, Nano-X will possibly transform again a color
(since all colors are specified in RGB) to display
it on the actual display hardware.

Currently, the VNC client only requests pixels in 8bpp.
George, you need to try out having the VNC client tell the
VNC server to send pixels in 16, and 24bpp.  The problem is,
right now, that since VNC always gets pixels in 8bpp mode,
it passes them thru unmodified (this is equivalent to a trick)
to Nano-X, and makes Nano-X think that they are really
palette values, which they are.  But for systems with 
better than 8bpp hardware, the screen won't look exact,
so we need to also get pixels in 565 and 888 formats, and
then Microwindows will translate them (according to the
hardware it is actually running on) to the appropriate values.

There are some other minor enhancements, like adding
the client capability to scroll or offset to different server
screen regions, that I would also like to add.  I will
add some Nano-X viewport functions to help with this.


The VNC
: documentation says that any 3.3.x viewer should work with any
: 3.3.x server so compatibility is not a problem.

Then why were people saying that it didn't work with the latest
version of VNC??

Regards,

Greg