How do I make shaped windows?

[BuffaloX]

I've been searching several hours now (again),

But I haven't been able to find documentation for making shaped / non rectangular / free-form windows in Linux.

I'm looking for a solution for either of these languages.
C / C++
Python
Lazarus

Solution must be compatible with Gnome, and preferably also with Compiz fusion.

Any help would be much appreciated.

[Wybiral]

I remember theres a way to initialize a GTK window without a frame... Maybe using that with a transparent image or something. I haven't really seen it done in Gnome though (that I can think of).

EDIT:

I remember the command now: http://www.pygtk.org/docs/pygtk/clas...-set-decorated

[aks44]

What toolkit are you using?

With Qt, look at QWidget::setMask. (search term: "non rectangular" window qt)

With GTK, look at gtk_widget_shape_combine_mask. (search term: "non rectangular" window gtk)

Anyway, the results I found seem to detail the whole process quite correctly.

[BuffaloX]

Thanks for nice and quick responses.

I haven't decided on a toolkit or library yet, partly because I want this specific functionality, and hoped for some examples that could help me turbo charge into some Linux GUI programming.

I want compatibility with Gnome because that's what I use, and also compatibility with Compiz Fusion because I plan to use it, when functionality gets on par with Beryl. (It isn't yet IMO).

I think the alpha method for Python doesn't work so well, sometimes transparent areas show the wrong background, or the background with wrong opacity when placed on a semi transparent cube with Compiz.

The gtk_widget_shape_combine_mask sounds like what I want, but a google search has turned up only questions, and no examples....

Thanx for helping me on a clearly better track than where I came from.

[moma]

I have some shaped window (XLib XShape* + Cairo graphics on them) examples in C/C++. I just need to find them. It's late evening here so you'll get the sample(s) tomorrow.

[BuffaloX]

Originally Posted by moma I have some shaped window (XLib XShape* + Cairo graphics on them) examples in C/C++. I just need to find them. It's late evening here so you'll get the sample(s) tomorrow.

WOW cool.

This Cairo thing sounds quite exciting...
Do I understand correctly, that it works directly on the X frame buffer and should work with all X11 compatible window managers?
If that is so, it is exactly what I want, but didn't think was possible.

I'm off to read about this Cairo thingy...

[aks44]

Originally Posted by BuffaloX The gtk_widget_shape_combine_mask sounds like what I want, but a google search has turned up only questions, and no examples....

http://www.advogato.org/proj/glock/ (search result)
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/glock/ (homepage)

Glock is a simple analog clock program. It is written in C and uses the GTK+ toolkit, and optionally the Cairo graphics library. The original purpose of glock was to have a simple demo of an undecorated non-rectangular window using gtk_widget_shape_combine_mask(), moveable with the mouse using gtk_window_begin_move_drag().

(first result for search term: "non rectangular" window gtk on clusty, looks like you better ditch google )

[BuffaloX]

Originally Posted by aks44 http://www.advogato.org/proj/glock/ (search result) http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/software/glock/ (homepage) (first result for search term: "non rectangular" window gtk on clusty, looks like you better ditch google )

glock is perfect, works perfectly with both gnome/metacity and gnome/compiz.
Seems like it uses Cairo, which is vector based. Which is even better for adjusting size.

It's quite late now here, so I'll have to wait till tomorrow to look at it again.
Can't wait till I get home tomorrow.

Oh btw, yes I probably should ditch google, I'll check out clusty for my next searches.

[aks44]

Originally Posted by BuffaloX glock is perfect [...] Can't wait till I get home tomorrow.

Glad I could help on a subject I don't know anything about.

Originally Posted by BuffaloX Oh btw, yes I probably should ditch google, I'll check out clusty for my next searches.

FWIW, for me clusty gives way better results (the relevance is not even comparable) than google for most stuff (I'd say 90/95+ % of the searches). And whenever clusty doesn't yield any relevant result, it's quite rare that google does (although it happened). The only bad side of clusty is that it really doesn't deal well with *non-english* searches IMHO.

[moma]

Here is the sample 1.

// shape1.cpp
// This simple example shows how to create a shaped, borderless window.
// It uses only XLib and XShape* extension calls.

The shape of the window comes from "myshape.xbm" image.
myshape.xbm is readable. It also defines
#define myshape_width 200
#define myshape_height 200

The code has a draw() function which tries to draw a red, filled rectangle on the face, but only pixels that hits the mask (myshape.xbm) are visible.

Attached: shape1.tar

You will need the "libxext-dev" package to compile and run it.

Compile:
$ g++ -lX11 -lXext shape1.cpp -o shape1

Run:
$ ./shape1
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more to come.