Date: Tue, 13 Jan 1998 22:31:16 -0600 (CST) From: Joel Ray Holveck <joelh@gnu.org> To: hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Splash screen (splashkit) for 3.0 systems... Message-ID: <199801130436.WAA02770@detlev.UUCP> In-Reply-To: <199801121414.AAA00487@word.smith.net.au> (message from Mike Smith on Tue, 13 Jan 1998 00:44:40 %2B1030) References: <199801121414.AAA00487@word.smith.net.au>
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>>> It's a very short step from there to a semi-graphical login (eg. login >>> dialog rather than login/password prompt.) I could see people liking >>> that. >> Good point, although the graphical login window is really best handled >> by xdm, and I don't really see people wanting a graphical login window >> being requested without a full graphics system (ie, X). > I just thought it would look "pretty". I agree, it would. And I don't mind making things look pretty; I don't mind aesthetics for aesthetics' sake. But when I'm in a mood for aesthetics, I can switch over to X, switch my window mangler to Enlightenment, and use it. >> Okay, let me get opinions: >> * What do people want? I see a couple of possibilities: >> 1. A graphical idle screen that shows things like fractals or bitmaps >> with rotating palettes, > This is commonly called a "screensaver". I would suggest that any > effort in this direction be focussed on providing an interface for > graphical screensavers. Yeah, I kinda came to the same conclusion on my own. >> 3. Something that shows just a login window > Kinda makes it seem fairly pointless, doesn't it? Given that you have > to deal with forking off login and all that, it stops being attractive > fairly quickly. Well, I can handle forking off login and all that. See, last night, after I decided to start doing this, I did. I made a copy of getty, renamed it to ggetty, and started making modifications. It's actually fairly simple to do a basic idle routine. Enclosed is a (proof-of-concept quick-hack no-warranty-applies) patch I made to do just this, drawing random lines on the screen. I started to modify it to use munching squares, and pondered the most efficient method of doing the palette rotations for smoking clover, and so forth. Then I realized that I was thinking of things to do that are effectively screen savers. >> * Is this really going to be the best way to go about it? > No. Reflection doesn't really indicate that. Okay, let's back up. Why did I first think this would be a good idea? You wrote a splash screen on startup, something to hide the ugly details of device probes other kernel stuff, and generally add the graphical appearance which is more appealing to the unwashed masses. <199801061303.XAA00382@word.smith.net.au> Does this splash screen serve any other purpose? Mika asked about making the splash screen stay on until somebody logged in. <199801111402.QAA02310@shadows.aeon.net> I lost the original message, and the mailing list search (actually, all hub http requests) seems to be down, so I don't quite remember why. Mika? I decided to actually make it happen. This seemed like a really good idea at the time. <199801112147.PAA02503@detlev.UUCP> You said that people would like a graphical login dialog. <199801120248.NAA01045@word.smith.net.au> Were you talking about something in xdm style, or what? Okay, that seems to be the key messages of why this would be a good idea. In general, I think that when *I personally* in a mood to interact with a computer graphically, I'll use X. Does anybody else have an opinion on this? Also, in general, I agree that the pretty things going on while the console is idle are best handled by screen savers. Opinions? Perhaps it would be best to have an vty ioctl that means 'engage screensaver immediately, which getty can send when it starts up, depending on a gettytab setting. Alternately, we could use an escape sequence instead, and set it up as the last character sequence in gettytab's `lm' (login message) attribute. Well, enough of that, I've gotten in the mood to write a graphical *SOMETHING* now, so I'll probably be submitting a graphical screensaver RSN. Cheers, joelh -- Joel Ray Holveck - joelh@gnu.org - http://www.wp.com/piquan Fourth law of programming: Anything that can go wrong wi sendmail: segmentation violation - core dumped
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