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picom/README.md
Richard Grenville 3521f10a97 Improvement #74: Use libevent for main loop
- Use libevent for main loop. I will explain the reasons in #56 later.
  The preferred libevent version is 2.x, yet 1.4.x should work as well.

- As a result, compton now should build fine on *BSD. Thanks to
  DachiChang for the FreeBSD build issue report.

- Another consequence is we now use microsecond-level timing all the
  way. Nanosecond-level code will be dropped soon. Start using long
  instead of unsigned long to represent time in milliseconds, as both
  can't hold the full epoch time in ms, anyway, and a signed type
  requires less care in subtraction. Wrap the epoch time in ms to 15
  days.

- Fix broken NO_VSYNC_DRM and NO_VSYNC_OPENGL compile-time options.

- Use git revision number for versioning in Makefile, and other small
  improvements.

- Reorganize struct _win. Drop unused w->damaged_sequence. w->damaged is
  turned to bool.

- Add type and format to winprop_t, as preparation for the new condition
  format.

- Add w->shadow_force and w->focus_force, to prepare for D-Bus support.

- Rename wid_get_prop() to wid_get_prop_adv() with more options. Add
  wrapper function wid_get_prop().

- Add some extra helper functions, for D-Bus support later.

- Make some functions return a bool value to indicate if it's
  successful.

- Modify add_win(), use a static const structure to initialize the new
  struct _win.

- Add some helper macros, like printf_err(f)(q). Make some errors fatal.

- Rename some types, constants, and functions. Code clean-up.

- Check for time disorder in paint_preprocess() when calculating fading
  steps.

- Rename evpoll() to swopti_handle_timeout(), and partially rewrite it.

- Make -h / --help legal.

- Known issue: compton segfaults on FreeBSD with nvidia-drivers, unless
  NO_VSYNC_OPENGL is used. Will look into it later. Thamls to DachiChang
  for reporting.
2013-01-08 10:19:19 +08:00

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# Compton
__Compton__ is a compositor for X, and a fork of __xcompmgr-dana__.
I was frustrated by the low amount of standalone lightweight compositors.
Compton was forked from Dana Jansens' fork of xcompmgr and refactored. I fixed
whatever bug I found, and added features I wanted. Things seem stable, but don't
quote me on it. I will most likely be actively working on this until I get the
features I want. This is also a learning experience for me. That is, I'm
partially doing this out of a desire to learn Xlib.
## Changes from xcompmgr:
* __inactive window transparency__ (specified with `-i`)
* __titlebar/frame transparency__ (specified with `-e`)
* menu transparency (thanks to Dana)
* shadows are now enabled for argb windows, e.g. terminals with transparency
* removed serverside shadows (and simple compositing) to clean the code,
the only option that remains is clientside shadows
* configuration files (specified with `--config`)
* colored shadows (with `--shadow-[red/green/blue] value`)
* a new fade system
* vsync (still under development)
* several more options
## Fixes from the original xcompmgr:
* fixed a segfault when opening certain window types
* fixed a memory leak caused by not freeing up shadows (from the freedesktop
repo)
* fixed the conflict with chromium and similar windows
* [many more](https://github.com/chjj/compton/issues)
## Building
### Dependencies:
__B__ for build-time
__R__ for runtime
* libx11 (B,R)
* libxcomposite (B,R)
* libxdamage (B,R)
* libxfixes (B,R)
* libXext (B,R)
* libxrender (B,R)
* libXrandr (B,R)
* pkg-config (B)
* make (B)
* xproto / x11proto (B)
* bash (R)
* xprop,xwininfo / x11-utils (R)
* libpcre (B,R) (Will probably be made optional soon)
* libconfig (B,R) (Will probably be made optional soon)
* libdrm (B) (Will probably be made optional soon)
* libGL (B,R) (Will probably be made optional soon)
* asciidoc (B) (if you wish to run `make docs`)
* libevent (B,R)
### How to build
To build, make sure you have the dependencies above:
``` bash
# Make the main program
$ make
# Make the newer man pages
$ make docs
# Install
$ make install
```
(Compton does include a `_CMakeLists.txt` in the tree, but we haven't decided whether we should switch to CMake yet. The `Makefile` is fully usable right now.)
## Known issues
* VSync does not work too well. It's widely reported that tearing still happens on the top of the screen. I do not know how to fix the issue.
* If `--unredir-if-possible` is enabled, when compton redirects/unredirects windows, the screen may flicker. Using `--paint-on-overlay` minimizes the problem from my observation, yet I do not know if there's a cure.
* compton may not track focus correctly in all situations. The focus tracking code is experimental. `--use-ewmh-active-win` might be helpful.
* Compton may give ugly shadow to windows with ARGB background if `-z` is enabled, because compton cannot determine their real shapes. One may have to disable shadows on those windows with window-type-specific settings in configuration file or `--shadow-exclude`.
* There are two sets of man pages in the repository: the man pages in groff format (`man/compton.1` & `man/compton-trans.1`) and the man pages in Asciidoc format (`man/compton.1.asciidoc` & `man/compton-trans.1.asciidoc`). The Asciidoc man pages are much more up-to-date than the groff ones, and it is viewable online. As chjj has not yet expressed his attitude towards switching to Asciidoc man pages, I kept both versions. By default the groff version is installed, unless you run `make docs`.
* The performance of blurring is terrible, probably because of a problem in the X Render implementation. Its behavior is driver-dependent: With nvidia-drivers it works but there are strange 1px lines remaining when you operate on windows (not sure if it's a bug in compton or in the driver); with nouveau it's utterly broken.
## Usage
Please refer to the Asciidoc man pages (`man/compton.1.asciidoc` & `man/compton-trans.1.asciidoc`) for more details and examples.
Note a sample configuration file `compton.sample.conf` is included in the repository.
## Support
* Bug reports and feature requests should go to the "Issues" section above.
* Our (semi?) official IRC channel is #compton on FreeNode.
* Some information is available on the wiki, including (and presently, only includes) a FAQ.
## License
Although compton has kind of taken on a life of its own, it was originally
an xcompmgr fork. xcompmgr has gotten around. As far as I can tell, the lineage
for this particular tree is something like:
* Keith Packard (original author)
* Matthew Hawn
* ...
* Dana Jansens
* chjj and richardgv
Not counting the tens of people who forked it in between.
Compton is distributed under MIT license, as far as I (richardgv) know. See LICENSE for more info.