nanogui: Thread: Running standalone apps in MicroWin

Hi there,

What would I need to do to get standalone apps to work in Microwin?
Nano-X seems to do a really nice job of it.

Though the underlying drawing mechanisms are the same, the architecture
of MicroWin and Nano-X seem different.

Cheers
David

: What would I need to do to get standalone apps to work in Microwin?
: Nano-X seems to do a really nice job of it.
:
: Though the underlying drawing mechanisms are the same, the architecture
: of MicroWin and Nano-X seem different.

Yes, Nano-X takes advantage of the X-like client/server architecture, because
it uses id's and never pointers when making calls to the server.  The Win32
architecture wasn't designed that way, and requires more sophisticated
(read complicated) mechanisms like marshalling in order to get the same job
done.

I'm working on this problem, and one idea stands out as more revolutionary:
That is to have the Microwindows server run as a process, using shared libraries
for all the clip and draw code, and share a data segment with other processes
desiring to use the graphics services.  Then, when a new process is started,
it uses the same shared libraries for the clip and draw code, but gets it's
clipping information from the shared data segment.  Then, the application
draws directly to the framebuffer, rather than sending the data down a
socket.

This architecture promises to be much faster than X, but it is limited to
running
on the same system, and having direct access to Linux framebuffer.  For many
applications, this will be just fine.

Regards,

Greg

> > I'm just thinking about an app similar to 'PC Anywhere'. Would we
> still be able to
> resend all of the paint messages to somewhere to reproduce the
> whole screen
> remotely ? I don't mean individual apps or windows, I'm thinking
> of the whole
> screen (vnc is another similar app). I think this would be
> possible, since we have
> the whole Windows architecture anyway. Just not 100% sure.

why don't you just write a screen driver that interfaces to the vnc
protocol?

you can find information on porting the vnc server at
www.uk.research.att.com/vnc

Rob Taylor