Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!decwrl!sgi!shinobu!odin!ramoth.esd.sgi.com!msc From: msc@ramoth.esd.sgi.com (Mark Callow) Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi Subject: Re: SGI's migration to X Message-ID: <1990Sep6.010419.1573@odin.corp.sgi.com> Date: 6 Sep 90 01:04:19 GMT References: <208@voodoo.UUCP> Sender: news@odin.corp.sgi.com (Net News) Reply-To: msc@sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics Inc., Entry Systems Division Lines: 36 In article , jim@baroque.Stanford.EDU (James Helman) writes: |> Once SGI's current window coexistence problems are fixed, will SGI's |> GL/X dichotomy be pretty much the same as Sun's XGL/X split? That is |> once a window is opened either as a local X window or as a "direct" |> graphics window, there is no way to get a handle for applying the |> other's drawing calls on that window? After t-day (or should that be X-day) a program will be able to make windows using either X calls (referred to as an X client) or the existing GL calls (referred to as a GL client). GL clients will draw in the window using the GL just as they do today. GL clients can obtain the X window id of the window if desired. An X client may use new GL calls to initialize the GL, obtain a GL rendering context and bind that context to the X window of their choice. They then render into that window using the usual GL calls. I'm not sure if the X client will also be able to render using X calls. One of our server gods can answer more authoritatively than I. Even if it's possible, we don't recommend doing it. Trying to image into the same window using both X and the GL raises a bunch of nasty issues of which one of the nastiest is synchronizing the drawing. Has the GL finished drawing this polygon so I can have X draw this line? Who's on first so to speak. Ugh!! In case anybody misunderstands what I mean by the "same window" let me explain. You will be able to make a top level X window with several subwindows. You may image into one of more of the subwindows using the GL and into the remaining subwindows using X. What we do not recommend is trying to render into the same subwindow using both GL and X. -- From the TARDIS of Mark Callow msc@ramoth.sgi.com, ...{ames,decwrl}!sgi!msc "There is much virtue in a window. It is to a human being as a frame is to a painting, as a proscenium to a play. It strongly defines its content."