Generic Rootless Layer
Version 1.0
July 13, 2004
Torrey T. Lyons
torrey@xfree86.org
Introduction
The generic rootless layer allows an X server to be implemented
on top of another window server in a cooperative manner. This allows the
X11 windows and native windows of the underlying window server to
coexist on the same screen. The layer is called "rootless" because the root
window of the X server is generally not drawn. Instead, each top-level
child of the root window is represented as a separate on-screen window by
the underlying window server. The layer is referred to as "generic"
because it abstracts away the details of the underlying window system and
contains code that is useful for any rootless X server. The code for the
generic rootless layer is located in xc/programs/Xserver/miext/rootless. To
build a complete rootless X server requires a specific rootless
implementation, which provides functions that allow the generic rootless
layer to interact with the underlying window system.
Concepts
In the context of a rootless X server the term window is used to
mean many fundamentally different things. For X11 a window is a DDX
resource that describes a visible, or potentially visible, rectangle on the
screen. A top-level window is a direct child of the root window. To avoid
confusion, an on-screen native window of the underlying window system
is referred to as a "frame". The generic rootless layer associates each
mapped top-level X11 window with a frame. An X11 window may be said
to be "framed" if it or its top-level parent is represented by a frame.
The generic rootless layer models each frame as being backed at
all times by a backing buffer, which is periodically flushed to the screen.
If the underlying window system does not provide a backing buffer for
frames, this must be done by the rootless implementation. The generic
rootless layer model does not assume it always has access to the frames'
backing buffers. Any drawing to the buffer will be proceeded by a call to
the rootless implementation's StartDrawing() function and StopDrawing()
will be called when the drawing is concluded. The address of the frame's
backing buffer is returned by the StartDrawing() function and it can
change between successive calls.
Because each frame is assumed to have a backing buffer, the
generic rootless layer will stop Expose events being generated when the
regions of visibility of a frame change on screen. This is similar to backing
store, but backing buffers are different in that they always store a copy of
the entire window contents, not just the obscured portions. The price paid
in increased memory consumption is made up by the greatly decreased
complexity in not having to track and record regions as they are obscured.
Rootless Implementation
The specifics of the underlying window system are provided to the
generic rootless layer through rootless implementation functions, compile-
time options, and runtime parameters. The rootless implementation
functions are a list of functions that allow the generic rootless layer to
perform operations such as creating, destroying, moving, and resizing
frames. Some of the implementation functions are optional. A detailed
description of the rootless implementation functions is provided in
Appendix A.
By design, a rootless implementation should only have to include
the rootless.h header file. The rootlessCommon.h file contains definitions
internal to the generic rootless layer. (If you find you need to use
rootlessCommon.h in your implementation, let the generic rootless layer
maintainers know. This could be an area where the generic rootless layer
should be generalized.) A rootless implementation should also modify
rootlessConfig.h to specify compile time options for its platform.
The following compile-time options are defined in
rootlessConfig.h:
o ROOTLESS_PROTECT_ALPHA: By default for a color bit depth of 24 and
32 bits per pixel, fb will overwrite the "unused" 8 bits to optimize
drawing speed. If this is true, the alpha channel of frames is
protected and is not modified when drawing to them. The bits
containing the alpha channel are defined by the macro
RootlessAlphaMask(bpp), which should return a bit mask for
various bits per pixel.
o ROOTLESS_REDISPLAY_DELAY: Time in milliseconds between updates to
the underlying window server. Most operations will be buffered until
this time has expired.
o ROOTLESS_RESIZE_GRAVITY: If the underlying window system supports it,
some frame resizes can be optimized by relying on the frame contents
maintaining a particular gravity during the resize. In this way less
of the frame contents need to be preserved by the generic rootless
layer. If true, the generic rootless layer will pass gravity hints
during resizing and rely on the frame contents being preserved
accordingly.
The following runtime options are defined in rootless.h:
o rootlessGlobalOffsetX, rootlessGlobalOffsetY: These specify the global
offset that is applied to all screens when converting from
screen-local to global coordinates.
o rootless_CopyBytes_threshold, rootless_CopyWindow_threshold:
The minimum number of bytes or pixels for which to use the rootless
implementation's respective acceleration function. The rootless
acceleration functions are all optional so these will only be used
if the respective acceleration function pointer is not NULL.
Accelerated Drawing
The rootless implementation typically does not have direct access
to the hardware. Its access to the graphics hardware is generally through
the API of the underlying window system. This underlying API may not
overlap well with the X11 drawing primitives. The generic rootless layer
falls back to using fb for all its 2-D drawing. Providing optional rootless
implementation acceleration functions can accelerate some graphics
primitives and some window functions. Typically calling through to the
underlying window systems API will not speed up these operations for
small enough areas. The rootless_*_threshold runtime options allow the
rootless implementation to provide hints for when the acceleration
functions should be used instead of fb.
Alpha Channel Protection
If the bits per pixel is greater then the color bit depth, the contents
of the extra bits are undefined by the X11 protocol. Some window systems
will use these extra bits as an alpha channel. The generic rootless layer can
be configured to protect these bits and make sure they are not modified by
other parts of the X server. To protect the alpha channel
ROOTLESS_PROTECT_ALPHA and RootlessAlphaMask(bpp) must be
set appropriately as described under the compile time options. This
ensures that the X11 graphics primitives do not overwrite the alpha
channel in an attempt to optimize drawing. In addition, the window
functions PaintWindow() and Composite() must be replaced by alpha
channel safe variants. These are provided in rootless/safeAlpha.
Credits
The generic rootless layer was originally conceived and developed
by Greg Parker as part of the XDarwin X server on Mac OS X. John
Harper made later optimizations to this code but removed its generic
independence of the underlying window system. Torrey T. Lyons
reintroduced the generic abstractions and made the rootless code suitable
for use by other X servers.
Appendix A: Rootless Implementation Functions
The rootless implementation functions are defined in rootless.h. It
is intended that rootless.h contains the complete interface that is needed by
rootless implementations. The definitions contained in rootlessCommon.h
are intended for internal use by the generic rootless layer and are more
likely to change.
Most of these functions take a RootlessFrameID as a parameter.
The RootlessFrameID is an opaque object that is returned by the
implementation's CreateFrame() function. The generic rootless layer does
not use this frame id other than to pass it back to the rootless
implementation to indicate the frame to operate on.
/*
* Create a new frame.
* The frame is created unmapped.
*
* pFrame RootlessWindowPtr for this frame should be completely
* initialized before calling except for pFrame->wid, which
* is set by this function.
* pScreen Screen on which to place the new frame
* newX, newY Position of the frame.
* pNewShape Shape for the frame (in frame-local coordinates). NULL for
* unshaped frames.
*/
typedef Bool (*RootlessCreateFrameProc)
(RootlessWindowPtr pFrame, ScreenPtr pScreen, int newX, int newY,
RegionPtr pNewShape);
/*
* Destroy a frame.
* Drawing is stopped and all updates are flushed before this is called.
*
* wid Frame id
*/
typedef void (*RootlessDestroyFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid);
/*
* Move a frame on screen.
* Drawing is stopped and all updates are flushed before this is called.
*
* wid Frame id
* pScreen Screen to move the new frame to
* newX, newY New position of the frame
*/
typedef void (*RootlessMoveFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, ScreenPtr pScreen, int newX, int newY);
/*
* Resize and move a frame.
* Drawing is stopped and all updates are flushed before this is called.
*
* wid Frame id
* pScreen Screen to move the new frame to
* newX, newY New position of the frame
* newW, newH New size of the frame
* gravity Gravity for window contents (rl_gravity_enum). This is always
* RL_GRAVITY_NONE unless ROOTLESS_RESIZE_GRAVITY is set.
*/
typedef void (*RootlessResizeFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, ScreenPtr pScreen,
int newX, int newY, unsigned int newW, unsigned int newH,
unsigned int gravity);
/*
* Change frame ordering (AKA stacking, layering).
* Drawing is stopped before this is called. Unmapped frames are mapped by
* setting their ordering.
*
* wid Frame id
* nextWid Frame id of frame that is now above this one or NULL if this
* frame is at the top.
*/
typedef void (*RootlessRestackFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, RootlessFrameID nextWid);
/*
* Change frame's shape.
* Drawing is stopped before this is called.
*
* wid Frame id
* pNewShape New shape for the frame (in frame-local coordinates)
* or NULL if now unshaped.
*/
typedef void (*RootlessReshapeFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, RegionPtr pNewShape);
/*
* Unmap a frame.
*
* wid Frame id
*/
typedef void (*RootlessUnmapFrameProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid);
/*
* Start drawing to a frame.
* Prepare a frame for direct access to its backing buffer.
*
* wid Frame id
* pixelData Address of the backing buffer (returned)
* bytesPerRow Width in bytes of the backing buffer (returned)
*/
typedef void (*RootlessStartDrawingProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, char **pixelData, int *bytesPerRow);
/*
* Stop drawing to a frame.
* No drawing to the frame's backing buffer will occur until drawing
* is started again.
*
* wid Frame id
* flush Flush drawing updates for this frame to the screen.
*/
typedef void (*RootlessStopDrawingProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, Bool flush);
/*
* Flush drawing updates to the screen.
* Drawing is stopped before this is called.
*
* wid Frame id
* pDamage Region containing all the changed pixels in frame-local
* coordinates. This is clipped to the window's clip.
*/
typedef void (*RootlessUpdateRegionProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, RegionPtr pDamage);
/*
* Mark damaged rectangles as requiring redisplay to screen.
*
* wid Frame id
* nrects Number of damaged rectangles
* rects Array of damaged rectangles in frame-local coordinates
* shift_x, Vector to shift rectangles by
* shift_y
*/
typedef void (*RootlessDamageRectsProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, int nrects, const BoxRec *rects,
int shift_x, int shift_y);
/*
* Switch the window associated with a frame. (Optional)
* When a framed window is reparented, the frame is resized and set to
* use the new top-level parent. If defined this function will be called
* afterwards for implementation specific bookkeeping.
*
* pFrame Frame whose window has switched
* oldWin Previous window wrapped by this frame
*/
typedef void (*RootlessSwitchWindowProc)
(RootlessWindowPtr pFrame, WindowPtr oldWin);
/*
* Copy bytes. (Optional)
* Source and destinate may overlap and the right thing should happen.
*
* width Bytes to copy per row
* height Number of rows
* src Source data
* srcRowBytes Width of source in bytes
* dst Destination data
* dstRowBytes Width of destination in bytes
*/
typedef void (*RootlessCopyBytesProc)
(unsigned int width, unsigned int height,
const void *src, unsigned int srcRowBytes,
void *dst, unsigned int dstRowBytes);
/*
* Copy area in frame to another part of frame. (Optional)
*
* wid Frame id
* dstNrects Number of rectangles to copy
* dstRects Array of rectangles to copy
* dx, dy Number of pixels away to copy area
*/
typedef void (*RootlessCopyWindowProc)
(RootlessFrameID wid, int dstNrects, const BoxRec *dstRects,
int dx, int dy);
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