Keith Packard Takes On X.Org Window Scaling With Input Handling

X.Org/X11 veteran Keith Packard has started working on better support for independent window scaling with the X.Org stack that would also allow for input handling with the scaled windows.

With Keith's virtual reality (VR) work for the Linux stack pretty much squared away, his latest X.Org improvement effort is around window scaling with desktop compositors. While X.Org compositors have already been able to deliver scaled window contents -- such as from the "overview" on the GNOME Shell, alt-tab switchers, etc -- the current architecture has not supported interacting with these scaled windows -- such as proper input event handling.

Experimental patches to the X.Org Server, the X protocol headers, libXcomposite, and XCB, Keith has improved this support for allowing individual windows to be scaled without any changes to the application code while still allows for proper input event handling. The X.Org server scales the "image" (the window's contents) albeit if increasing the size of the window will resort in a lower quality image.

For performing this per-window scaling, Keith has made it easy to manipulate via a new xownersize utility.

Those curious about this work-in-progress code can find more information on the implementation via Keith's blog.