Feature request: Desktop Mode

user37337 · Post by **user37337** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 10:39 am

What about a Desktop Mode for Irrlicht? Then you can create your own 3D-Desktop-Environment...

CuteAlien · Post by **CuteAlien** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:08 am

Ah - the incredible beauty of OpenSource: Not only can you request a feature, but you can even implement it yourself and just add it ;-)

I must admit that so far I have no idea what such a desktop mode would look like or what it would have to do. Are you talking about programming a window manager?

hybrid · Post by **hybrid** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 11:43 am

I remember some people did so a very long tiem ago. Search the forums, was around mid 2005 IIRC.

user37337 · Post by **user37337** » Thu Oct 18, 2007 4:05 pm

@CuteAlien
Do you know "Milkdrop" for Winamp? There you can choose "Desktop Mode". Looks very good.
Desktop Mode means the Wallpaper is replaced by the Application...

@hybrid
thx
i'll look for it

IPv6 · Post by **IPv6** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 12:13 pm

This stuff is not hard if you can create overlay texture. After that you only have to fill desktop with single color == color key in your overlay texture. Everything that will be rendered in this texture will be visible at desktop and no screenshoter will be able to capture it

except special ones like fraps.

But... when i was interested in this stuff, the proper surface creation worked in DX7 only! i guess MS moved overlay stuff into video subsystem from 3D starting from DX8. And yes, this is only DirectX thing, OpenGL does not support overlays by design (not cross platform)

May be i am wrong nowadays, but this is what i know

sRc · Post by **sRc** » Fri Oct 19, 2007 3:15 pm

IPv6 wrote:This stuff is not hard if you can create overlay texture. After that you only have to fill desktop with single color == color key in your overlay texture. Everything that will be rendered in this texture will be visible at desktop and no screenshoter will be able to capture it except special ones like fraps.

or Vista, since it completely redid the way the way windows are done so overlays are still on a screenshotable layer (the entire Aero interface is a D3D 9Ex object)

FlyingIsFun1217 · Post by **FlyingIsFun1217** » Sun Oct 21, 2007 7:47 pm

IPv6 wrote:And yes, this is only DirectX thing, OpenGL does not support overlays by design (not cross platform)

Maybe I'M wrong, but if I remember correctly, VLC in linux can do it, so...

FlyingIsFun1217

bull · Post by **bull** » Mon Oct 22, 2007 2:21 pm

What about a Desktop Mode for Irrlicht? Then you can create your own 3D-Desktop-Environment...

Just make your program fullscreen and handle all evil window messages that tries to bring it to the front/minimize/resize ... You got a "desktop mode" program (aka a waste of CPU and GPU power) .

For linux, as far as I know, different GUIs work different ways, there's no such things as window messages. Sometimes opensource is so wonderful