multiple desktops and background painting

[Cody Tracy]

Much better idea than my patch.  I've been trying to finish it but I'm loaded 
here at work.  The patch just saved settings per "desktop".  Having multiple 
containments sounds like a lot of overhead but better for configuration.  Since 
I don't use desktop effects the thought of having multiple containments seems 
like it would be a waste of resources.  

Just my 2 cents.

On Wednesday 06 February 2008 10:50:35 Aaron J. Seigo wrote:
> hi all..
>
> a feature we're going to need to support is per-virtual-desktop wallpapers.
> however, *how* to accomplish this is the question.
>
> in particular, this is complicated by the fact that we now live in the
> brave new world of composition managers. so when viewing the desktop cube
> or desktop grid traditional desktop wallpapers don't really work that well:
> they think they are on desktop X even though desktops 0..N are actually
> being displayed simultaneously.
>
> the "solution" right now in composition managers such as the one in compiz
> is to provide their own wallpaper painting and people turn off their
> "native" wallpaper compositor. this is nasty and not what we want in
> plasma: plasma wants to provide cool, animated, interactive backgrounds in
> ways that window manager devs just aren't very interested in.
>
> fair enough.
>
> so here's my thought on how we could solve this problem:
>
> optionally provide one Plasma::View per-virtual desktop, per-screen. (right
> now just have one Plasma::View per-screen). each View would then not only
> belong to a given Screen (as they do now) but also to a Desktop.
>
> this would be queryable in the paintInterface, allowing the Containment to
> paint whatever it thinks appropriate for that view. in the common case, the
> Containment won't care and will just paint the same thing to each View.
>
> the downside? more Views which means more overhead. ergo the "optional"
> bit. i'd probably make it a run-time configuration to offer per-Desktop
> views. in the "one view per screen" mode, the view will switch the Desktop
> it advertises as being associated with as the desktop itself switches
> (allowing us to provide the lower resource (though broken for
> compositing) "traditional" approach)
>
> but it's the only way i can think of making this work properly when the
> same "desktop" from multiple virtual desktops need to be shown
> simultneously, such as in desktop grid, cube, etc.
>
> this also opens the door for per-virtual desktop Containment views. e.g.
> have Containment "Work" shown on Desktop 3, Containment "Play" on Desktops
> 1 and 2 and Containment "Misc" on Desktop 4.
>
> thoughts? concerns? questions?