UI ideas/questions or can we animate things as smooth as iPhone?

[Silva, Daniel]

> What I see is a situation very similar to the WinG (Windows Game) 
> libraries
> in the Windows 95 timeframe.  These allowed a Windows app to take over the
> entire screen and bypass GDI--even to the point of changing screen res and
> refresh rates.  Then, when you Alt-Tab'd away, or some other reason 
> required
> you to go back to other windows, you'd revert back to the normal modes.
>
> If we can have a method by which an app can take over the screen from X, 
> and
> then give it back (or have it taken back if necessary) then the apps (e.g.
> games) that need bare-metal access can do it, and those that can perform
> fine within X can do that.
>
> I'm certainly not trying to say that all apps need bare-metal access, or
> that frameworks are a bad thing.  But they become bad if they prevent you
> from bypassing them at need.
>
> I'm not an X expert--I've dealt with Linux as little as possible in my
> career--so I don't have ready access to the knowledge about what is
> possible, what is easy, and what just plain won't work with these systems.
> If we can keep X and GTK and provide a way to get maximum performance for
> those apps that need it...great!
>
> - John
>
>
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And i agree with you, thats why in my opinion something along the lines of 
DirectFB should be used.
This library allows developers to bypass the X and allows applications to 
talk directly to video hardware with a thin simple API,
no need to switch anything.
The better part is that DirectFB already has GTK+ support so less 
refactoring would be necessary, but thats the problem,
some code would have to be rewritten but with projects like XDirectFB, wich 
alows unmodified code targeted to X to run unmodified, this
could be made gradually.
I believe there are many potential solutions for this 'problem' without 
having to hinder programming simplicity.

Regards,
Daniel