metacity compositor in rawhide

[Jon Nettleton]

On Wed, 2007-12-19 at 10:22 -0500, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> Just thought I should mention that todays metacity build,
> 2.21.5-1.fc9,
> includes a new compositor. It is xrender-based (derived from xcompmgr)
> and thus works on systems where compiz doesn't. 
> 
> It certainly still has kinks, therefor it is not turned on by default
> yet. 
> 
> To play around with it, set the gconf key: 
> /apps/metacity/general/compositing_manager
> 

That is great to hear.  I have been holding off submitting my patches
upstream until this happened.  Here is the list if anyone wants to give
input.  Some of them are very similar to what xfwm4 already has.

1)  User configurable transparencies for windows when moved, and also
drop down menus.
2)  Drag and drop "windows" also become translucent.  It was brought up
on IRC that cursors are already ARGB, so can theoretically be
transparent causing a problem.  I think this is a setting that should be
desktop-wide, so I prefer having it in the window manager.  I am open
for discussion on this.  I just like being able to grab a bunch of text
or large icon and actually see where I am dropping it.
3)  Changes to the metacity capplet that also includes a checkbox to
turn on compositing.
4)  Unredirected fullscreen overlays.  I know this should be handled
with the new Xorg stuff.  I haven't followed up how far along the new
memory management code is.

I understand this should also be brought up with the metacity team, and
it will be.  I am more interested in what the fedora desktop team thinks
should be included in a base compositing desktop.  I would love to be
able to ship metacity with composite in F9, with the ability to turn on
3d compositing for more advanced effects.

Jon