About the Book
Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 32. Chapters: Compositing window managers, Tiling window managers, X window managers, Common Desktop Environment, Xfce, Compiz, Desktop Window Manager, Awesome, Stacking window manager, Beryl, Xmonad, St cking window manager, Dwm, Ion, Comparison of X window managers, KWin, DeskSpace, Ratpoison, Quartz Compositor, Wmii, Window decoration, Emerald, Motif Window Manager, VUE, VirtuaWin, Window Manager From Scratch, UWM, Re-parenting window manager, Larswm, Amiwm, Wmgr, X2x, Clfswm, Dynamic window manager, X2vnc, 4Dwm, Windawesome, Ardent Window Manager, Olwm, 4Sight. Excerpt: A compositing window manager is a type of window manager. A window manager is software that draws a graphical user interface on a computer display - it positions windows, draws additional elements on windows (such as borders and title bars), and controls how windows interact with each other, and with the rest of the desktop environment. Within the Microsoft Windows environment, for example, earlier (pre-Windows 2000) window managers made each individual program responsible for rendering its own window directly to display memory. A compositing window manager, however, combines the buffers of each window into a unified framebuffer representing the entire screen. Compositing window managers may perform additional processing on buffered windows, applying 2D and 3D animated effects such as alpha compositing, fading, scaling, rotation, duplication, bending and contortion, shuffling, blurring, redirecting applications, and translating windows into one of a number of displays and virtual desktops. Computer graphics technology allows for visual effects to be rendered in real time such as drop shadows, live previews, and complex animation. Since, technically, the screen is double buffered, it does not flicker during updates. The most commonly used compositing window man...
