GCDS: Client side windows in GDK (Alexander Larsson's talk)

Background: what a window is (basic X stuff)
When you're in GDK you never see all this stuff, because it wraps it.  You see widgets instead.  But some widgets have multiple windows and some have no windows (GTK_NO_WINDOW) because they draw in their parent widget's window.

So, client side windows.  Only use X windows for toplevel.  Subwindows are emulated.

Why?

• No flicker, because you never see a partially-drawn widget. (Demonstration.  Spontaneous applause.)
• Smarter redrawing; less copying.
• Easier to work across platforms (no X-specific stuff for X and so on).  Much simplified.  (more applause)
• Bling: you can do rotation and stuff (more applause).
• More bling: crazy clutter stuff that bounces around while you're working on it.  "This is clearly not like a useful user interface" :)

Clientside will be default, except for toplevels.  There is a call you can use to force a window to be native.
How does it work?  Lots of clever stuff about emulating events.  "Sounds easy but it's not".

Merged to git master already; X11 working fine; Win32 being written.

not an autobiographical parody

Because I could not wire a Plug,
It wired itself to me,
The carriage held but just ourselves,
And Electricity.

We passed the school, where children strove
To gain some erudition,
Ah! what a shame I did not learn
To be an electrician.

For who would think a wire called "live"
The life of humans halts?
My wiring style contains, I fear,
Two hundred forty faults.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet
We drive for all we're worth;
The eternal heavens seem so live;
So neutral seemed the earth.

(I think Death demonstrates that the common metre can make even the best metaphor sound trite.)