____/ Mark Kent on Saturday 22 September 2007 07:55 : \____
> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> ____/ Mark Kent on Friday 21 September 2007 15:15 : \____
>>
>>> The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Mark Kent
>>>><mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>> wrote
>>>> on Fri, 21 Sep 2007 12:29:06 +0100
>>>><2hmcs4-usv.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>>> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>> ____/ Mark Kent on Friday 21 September 2007 10:21 : \____
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Ghost In The Machine <ewill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>>>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Mark Kent
>>>>>>>><mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>>>>>>> wrote
>>>>>>>> on Thu, 20 Sep 2007 14:47:08 +0100
>>>>>>>><s7aas4-339.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>>>>>>>>> Mr. Doug Hoel <dhoel@xxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> "Mark Kent" <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>>>>>>> news:frn1s4-pa3.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>>>>>>>> graeme <www.rillion.net@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>>>>>>>>>>>> MS released a Vista Ultimate "Extra" called DreamScene - it loops
>>>>>>>>>>>> a movie for wallpaper.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>> http://tinyurl.com/2lcvwm
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> It must be frustrating working for Microsoft now, where really, all
>>>>>>>>>>> you get to do is copy what's already out there.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> You mean how this animated desktop that was just released (or
>>>>>>>>>> possibly released in 2002) is a cheap knock-off of Active Desktop
>>>>>>>>>> which Microsoft released in 1997.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> Yet another example of OSS "innovation" where they shamelessly copy
>>>>>>>>>> existing Microsoft technology. I just can't wait to see the next
>>>>>>>>>> version of open-office where OSS will "innovate" the ribbon bar that
>>>>>>>>>> MS-Office 2007 has.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> 1997? X-windows-system had a changeable root-window years before
>>>>>>>>> that. It must be frustrating working for Microsoft, where all you get
>>>>>>>>> to do is copy what's out there.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> As a second note: Amiga was more innovative than X
>>>>>>>> in this regard; a screen could hold multiple backdrop
>>>>>>>> windows (though the subsequent ones were invisible, being
>>>>>>>> covered up -- multiple backdrops is not all that useful a
>>>>>>>> capability, really, though multiple screens were, as one
>>>>>>>> could drag them around), and these were, apart from the
>>>>>>>> border, full-fledged windows capable of having requesters,
>>>>>>>> gadgets, and events [*]. (In Amiga, like in Windows,
>>>>>>>> there was no concept of a window manager; windows were
>>>>>>>> expected to decorate themselves with provided bordering
>>>>>>>> specifications, though a specialized title bar and sizing
>>>>>>>> flag trapped mouse events and handled resizing.)
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In X the window manager has to get involved, and I'd
>>>>>>>> have to research the details (it may differ within Qt
>>>>>>>> and Gtk/Gdk); in Amiga Intuition this was automatic (or,
>>>>>>>> more precisely, Intuition handled most of the details).
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> See my other posting on this. The display programme can render
>>>>>>> anything on the root window in X, which means that you can display
>>>>>>> videos,
>>>>>>> web-pages, or anything else. I included a couple of simple shell
>>>>>>> scripts as proof of concept, and am right now, here, looking at the BBC
>>>>>>> News pages being rendered on my root window every couple of minutes, as
>>>>>>> an "active desktop", just using a few simple unix commands.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Could do a quick GTK/Qt GUI within hours to wrap up this little scripts,
>>>>>> sort out the dependency and put it up on a repo. Voila! KDE/GNOME have
>>>>>> Active Desktop right there for point-and-clickers. Modularity pays off.
>>>>>> Development is fast and the outcome robust.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I suspect it wouldn't be all that difficult to have konqueror or
>>>>> firefox/iceweasel render directly onto the root window anyway, although
>>>>> I've not looked at that. I don't think that X does anything
>>>>> particularly special with the root window, in fact, it does almost
>>>>> nothing with it, I think!
>>>>>
>>>>> As you say, the value of modularity is this kind of flexibility.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Now that I see the solution it is rather obvious; however,
>>>> it suffers a bit from having to go through two rendering
>>>> filters. But xv was able to draw to the root in the late
>>>> 80's, though I'm not sure how command-line oriented it was.
>>>
>>> Well, yeah, I confess, I like simple :-)) I'm using htmldoc to render
>>> the web-pages, which is pretty good, although I don't think that the
>>> rendering engine is up to the levels of a Firefox or Konqueror. Perhaps
>>> in due course it will improve. Nevertheless, it's more than readable,
>>> and I'm quite enjoying having this "up to date" webpage on my root
>>> window. I'm considering doing some more tailoring to have it swing
>>> around different pages like Page 152 of the BBC CEEFAX service does,
>>> where it works like a news-ticker through all the main pages.
>>>
>>>>
>>>> In any event the root window is wrappable easily enough;
>>>> it's just a Window, after all. I'd have to look to see
>>>> what Gtk/Gdk does in that area but suspect it's already
>>>> wrapped.
>>>>
>>>
>>> I don't know, and I suspect you're much better qualified than I am to
>>> comment on it anyway.
>>
>> Also see khtml2png. It's on SourceForge, IIRC. It was handy for acquiring
>> screenshots or emulating stuff for site compatibility testing. There's also
>> browsershots, but it's a Web service, not a native executable.
>>
>
> Actually, I realised when I went digging into KDE that it has some kind
> of support built-in, almost certainly using Konq, to do this anyway.
> Still, it was great fun doing it the modular Unix way, particularly
> since this would work whether one were using KDE or not. Anyway, if you
> want to do it the KDE way, you need to r-clk on the background, choose
> configure desktop, select "advanced options" from the "background" menu,
> r-clk on the "use these programmes" button, then select "kdewebdesktop".
> Choose "modify" to put the URL of choice in, and then press all the
> "okay" buttons, and lo, you have an "active desktop".
The KDE workspace/wallpaper is already treated as though it's a file browser
(Konqueror), with a few differences though.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | Play Reversi: http://othellomaster.com
http://Schestowitz.com | Free as in Free Beer | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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