VOWM - Structure
The following is a structural overview of VOWM and the parallels, where they exist,
with existing 2D windows managers:
| Top Level of Hierarchy |
|
VOWM
|
Classical WM
|
Studio
|
Root Window context
|
Performer (geometry and bounds on object)
|
Frame (physical/geometric bounds on Window)
|
Medium (Physics, properties and Interface of Object)
|
Window (Window state and I/O)
|
Detail:
- textures - this is where, if you're running a remote X session off a different machine,
the graphical output is mapped onto an object's surface. Some sort of one-to-one mapping
interface between the OpenGL object surface, to the 2-D pixel location of the window/texture
needs to be encorporated.
- localized sound - put that stereo and spatialized audio hardware to good use. :-) After
all, why does text-to-speech have to be boring; soundscape constructs.
...perhaps the 3D audio engine and the 3D visual engine need to be two distinct modules/servers. i.e. the sound server is a platform for, say, someone who's visually impaired.?.
- rendered text (3D objects instead of simple bitmap) - remember that old xterm session?
Float the CLI letters on a rippling pond, or have them whispered from behind a rock. And they thought the command line was history!
- Control Widgets - Remember, you're in 3D now. Your pull-down menus are blooming flowers
and your buttons are floating soap-bubbles. When you minimize, a cow trounces through the
scene, eats the flowers, pops the bubbles and leaves a pile of manure. (that's your minimized icon ;-) Background activity is manifested by the cloud of hovering flies; kill is a shovel.
|
Active Rectangle:
- Bitmapped graphics - yippee.
- Wooosh! when I pull down a menu; Ding! when I push a button - symphonic.
- True-type fonts - joy.
- Pull-down windows and shadowed buttons - bliss.
|
| Bottom Level of Hierarchy |
|
Well, that's all I can think of for the moment...
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All ideas, developments and revolutions resulting from the contents of these pages are Open Source and GNU CopyLeft.
Created: February 12, 1999
Last Modified: February 12, 1999