Status Update

[Harold Hunt <Harold at compasstechnologies dot com>]

All,

Today I achieved some desired results with the Win9X compatible
Cygwin/XFree86 server.  I now have a server that places the overlay within a
window (giving the appearance that the server is a normal windows program),
it disappears when you press Alt-Tab, and it handles switching back and
forth to the server without any major problems.  Also, my readings on
DirectInput have given me a couple ideas that I may be able to pursue to fix
the keyboard problems being reported by several users.

I need some sort of definition of what the server should be before I start
writing some serious code, as I now have a firm enough grasp on the
technologies involved and the source code for the project.  I'm going to
start with a list of all the features that I have in mind, and I'd
appreciate it if other list subscribers voiced their support and disinterest
in the various features.

Proposed Cygwin/XFree86 X Server Features
1)  Full screen display mode (primary surface on NT,
     full screen overlay on Win9X)
     Difficulty: not bad, my test implementation is nearly complete

2)  Windowed display mode (non full screen overlay on all platforms)
     Difficulty: not bad, my test implementation is nearly complete

3)  Read full screen display mode from command line (vs. ?)
     Difficulty: already implemented

4)  Check desired full screen mode against hardware capabilities
     Difficulty: not bad, haven't started yet

5)  Use current display settings for windowed mode
     Difficulty: easy, haven't started yet

6)  Safer keyboard initialization
     Difficulty: medium, doesn't look hard, haven't started

7)  Color depths greater than 8 bits (anybody *need* this soon?)
     Difficulty: unknown, performance may suck

8)  Use graphics hardware acceleration (rather than the current flat frame
buffer)
     Difficulty: hard, not started, would take several months

9)  Devise a server start method that doesn't launch a ton of DOS prompts
     Difficulty: unknown, might cause more confusion than benefit

That's all I can think of for right now; I could probably get out a stable
release in a month if I stick to the easy tasks.  I think that a simple,
stable release that works on Windows 9X would probably make a lot of people
happy very quickly, as opposed to the more far-fetched ideas like hardware
acceleration and International keyboard support.  What do you all think?

Harold