[Panel-devel] KDE4

[Zack Rusin]

On Tuesday 21 June 2005 22:23, Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> so ... we should have a Plasma::Features singleton class that
> provides things like "bool openGL()" and "bool composite()". so in
> our code we can do
>
> 	if (Plasma::Features::the()->openGL())
> 	{
> 		openGLCoolness();
> 	}
> 	else
> 	{
> 		crappyBoringPath();
> 	}

That's so eighties ;) What I want to do for Plasma is introduce a 
concept of "gfx chains". 

Let me quickly explain what "gfx chains" would be.

The basic problem with all special effects in all desktop environments 
right now is that they are widget specific. For KDE 4 I'd like to have 
effects that are indepenent of widgets. And then widget developers can 
hook up effects for different stages of the rendering. For example a 
widget could create a chain of :
- masking effect (like our current tooltips),
- rotation effect (just rotate the widget 360 degrees)
and bind it to a certain event eg. mapping of it. 

Furthermore user could create chains for certain elements of the 
panel/desktop. 

So people develop effects completely seperately from the widgets 
(certain effects might be available only to certain widgets though).  
Also effects could advertise need for OpenGL accleration to perform 
their functions. So if a user doesn't have hw acceleration those 
special effects wouldn't be even available. 

Zack


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