Talk:Compositing window manager

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[edit] Just Updated This Aticle

I've spent a couple of day updating this article and others relating to it, and expanding them. I think I've incorporated most of the suggestions here, as well as linked the article into others like those about windows vista.

Enjoy! Andy16666 (talk) 22:45, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Who was first?

The first such combination was released in January 2005, as Xfwm. This sentence needs clarification; as written, it is not true. There was a compositing manager in metacity in cvs since November 2003, it appeared in an unstable tarball release (2.7.0) by February 2004, and in a stable tarball release (2.8.0) by May 2004. It wasn't widely announced as it would only build if the Xcomposite extension was found, which most people did not have at the time. In later versions of metacity (starting with 2.8.4; ca. August 2004), the built-in compositing manager was disabled by default and had to be explicitly enabled even if the Xcomposite extension was available. There may be a difference in quality argument that could be made for Xfwm's compositing manager released in 2005 versus what Metacity had at the time, and I'm guessing that the original sentence meant to convey something along those lines? Still, a difference in quality argument seems like it would be difficult to get right. --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I moved this note from the article and left a link pointing here. I'm not familiar with these details, but I suppose we should acknowledge this hidden feature of Metacity as it was in a stable release. --TuukkaH 11:06, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about KDE

KDE's window manager has had composite support for some time. It can behave a little erratically at times, but on the whole it looks nice. Transparent windows / decorations, window shadows.

[edit] xfwm4: "basic support for compositing"?

"At the moment, Xfce's window manager, Xfwm, has only basic support for compositing (such as a partially transparent panel)."

Is this up to date? It was written (released?) in November 2006, before Xfce 4.4.x came out, which has several notable upgrades to the compositor. I'm not extremely familiar with compositing, but I have been able to run compositing programs such as cairo-clock with xfwm. --I80and 17:28, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

Note that I'm an active, current, and reasonably well-versed xfce 4.4.2 (i.e., xfwm4) user. I'm using it to make these edits, under Arch Linux using a 2.6.24 kernel (as of Apr. 2008), and NO, the above is NOT up to date. Xfce 4.4.2 has full support for partial, varying, and complete window and taskbar transparency (which can change on-the-fly as a window gains or loses focus), shadows, SVG icons, and more. IMO (I couldn't find the phraseology to convey this concisely and precisely on the main page), KDE tried to depend too much, too early, on concurrent graphics card support, which at the time was quite limited. Xfce4 does require compositing to be enabled in X, but has NO graphical hardware requirements - you could, were you patient enough, I suppose, run xfce4 with a Virge DX/VX (or RIVA TNT) 8MB video card. While this may be *strictly* true of the early KDE implementations, KDE was horribly slow with mid-range graphics hardware; I'm this moment using the same Nvidia Geforce 2 MX/400 graphics card, on the same host system, I used under KDE - not exactly 'state-of-the-art' hardware, and performance is acceptable. While I've seen no hard numbers, xfce4's *anecdotally* known as being quite efficient as a compositor. Having run both WM's on identical hardware, I CAN attest it's MUCH more efficient than the earlier KDE 3.5.(8 or 9) implementation. It seems that, at least for now, with no hardware-level graphics standards yet well-developed for compositing, the implementations which rely least on hardware support will, of course, be more efficient. --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Nobody has responded, and I'm 99% sure that xfwm4 has full compositing support, so I'm removing that nonsense about it having "limited support". If I'm wrong, feel free to add it back (and send me a notice on my talk page). --I80and (talk) 20:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Have your comments above been at least minimally addressed? --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Exceptional example of a circular definition

The first sentence of this page contains exactly ONE word which isn't part of the phrase it allegedly 'defines' - "unified", and while I understand what's meant by that, I bet even many technical types would have trouble with it. The rest is pretty useless. I propose replacing the phrase, "...a compositing window manager is a unified X window manager and compositing manager, enabling..." with "...a compositing window manager enables...". It's more concise AND easier to understand. I believe removing the circular reference adds much more clarity than tossing "unified" subtracts (isn't "unified" implied?). I'll put this page on my watch list, and if there are no objections in a couple of weeks, I'll make the change at that time (give or take...). --Grndrush 20:07, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote the above, and believe the issue is now better-addressed, I vote to remove the entire "circular definition" section if there are no objections in a couple of weeks. --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Huh, i came here to find out more about this "unified", since i haven't elsewhere w/in WP. Yes it should be either explained or removed. --Jerome Potts (talk) 06:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Jerome - I just basically redid most of this page, and almost all the main page; it is far from perfect but, IMHO, a lot better than it was. Does my explanation suffice, IYO? If you can come up with a more easily-understood method of putting this info on the main page, go for it. Also, see my definition of 'unification' at the bottom of the next section (Compositing Manager). --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Compositing manager

The article says this is an X window manager combined with a compositing manager; what is a composting manager? It's not linked and the article with that name redirects right back here. 130.101.91.31 22:42, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

I was just going to ask the same thing --Phiren (talk) 12:15, 8 December 2007 (UTC)
I've been looking at xcompmgr, and it calls itself a compositing manager, and it can run below any existing X window manager. This probably limits xcompmgr's features, as it doesn't know about things like multiple desktops, and window decorations, which are the jobs of the window manager. --Phiren (talk) 00:40, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
I've noticed that someone has removed the link, is this a good idea, should there be a page for compositing managers. (give xcompmgr a page to live on, as it doesn't live here) --Phiren (talk) 19:43, 9 December 2007 (UTC)
"In the X Window System, a compositing window manager is a unified X window manager and compositing manager. The unification facilitates graphical effects that react to window management events such as appearance of new windows." This is awful: we still don't know what a compositing manager is, as mentioned above; And what's "unification"? No, it doesn't say. And i don't suppose it has to do with Unification? Someone please explain, or we'll have to trash this. Apparently whoever wrote this article hardly knows what he's talking about, as there not even a link to Compositing. Dude. Oh I added the "confusing" and "technical banners". --Jerome Potts (talk) 23:26, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm also waiting for an explanation what a compositing manager is. Having a look at older versions of the window manager article show a definition. Maybe it's even better to revert the window manager article? --Abdull (talk) 11:30, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
"Unification" refers to the WM and the compositor working together, each on a portion of the task at hand, to provide a superior desktop experience (at least from an Eye Candy standpoint). I personally believe compositing deserves its own page - but wiki IS a democracy.  ;) Have everyone's concerns such as the above been reasonably addressed? I *don't* want to remove the section above if they haven't. I further apologize for setting a personal record of *7* new links to my talk page on one page (*cringe*), but I didn't want to step on or combine the comments of those of you who'd taken the time to post previously. Thanks for your indulgence. --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Desktop Window Manager

DWM in Windows Vista is also a compositing window manager. It should be noted that compositing window managers do not exclusively exist in the X Window System. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.217.186 (talk) 03:28, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree --SealedSun (talk) 22:43, 3 January 2008 (UTC)


[edit] How does it work

How does all of this compositing work in relation to the X server, Window Manager, Applications, Protocols, AIGLX and other complexities. Are the X server commands converted into GL commands? Is the X server rendering into off screen windows that the window manager is then composition onto a hidden OpenGL window? Confused.... I think the article needs to mention some of this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.130.33.39 (talk) 03:17, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

WRT Linux/X, your comments above are basically accurate. There is now an X option called "TripleBuffer" so it can have *2* off-screen hidden buffers to build the 'composite' the user sees (this is supposedly more efficient than double-buffering). System events are passed from X to the "unified" WM/compositor, to co-ordinate screen refreshes in a timely fashion, etc. --Grndrush (talk) 06:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Dull picture

Top-right picture is dull, it is too dark. Hard to get the impression how such desktop really looks like. Maybe add some of these features: cube mirror, semi-transparent cube, nice (light!) background (maybe some featured picture from Wikipedia?), closing window with fire effect? 08:57, 14 May 2008 (UTC), Anonymous Coward

[edit] Windows Vista is completely wrong

The following paragraph is wrong. "Considering increasing OEM support for Linux, it would be logical for Microsoft to include a feature which is provided in competing software, however early showing of Microsoft Longhorn suggest that the feature was on the table before Linux and Apple delivered. [20]"

First the reference doesn't even refer (or even mention anything to do with) to what the paragraph is saying. Secondly Mac had a compositing window manager a month before Longhorn supposedly had. Also, normally in a the development life cycle, thing like this isn't added until, the very last minute. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.163.103 (talk) 01:13, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Also from Windows Areo article,
Until the release of Windows Vista Beta 1 in July 2005, little or nothing had been shown of Aero in public/leaked builds. Previous user interfaces were Plex, which was featured in Longhorn builds 3683-4029; Slate, which was featured in build 4051 and was available until build 4093; and Jade (builds 4074, 4083 and 4093, actually an early preview of Aero). Microsoft started using Aero in public builds in build 5048. The first build with full-featured Aero was build 5219. Build 5270 (released in December 2005) contained an implementation of Aero which was virtually complete, according to sources at Microsoft, though a number of stylistic changes were introduced between then and the operating system's release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.243.163.103 (talk) 01:22, 3 June 2008 (UTC)