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Re: [News] Linux Beats Vista "Ultimate" Edition to It (Animated Wallpaper)

____/ 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.

-- 
                ~~ Best of wishes

Roy S. Schestowitz      | Those who can, Open-Source
http://Schestowitz.com  |    RHAT Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
 17:20:03 up 11 days, 15:26,  5 users,  load average: 0.88, 1.10, 1.60
      http://iuron.com - Open Source knowledge engine project

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