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desktop effects


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Hello, I want to develop an application which gives effects to desktop. Say its like i want to develop a clone of compiz on windows. I dont want every feature, but i cant understand where to start. I am leaning towards directx and c++ for the 3d effects. I the first feature i am going to implement is the expose feature. I want feedback from u people and want a starting point. Any experienced people share your codes or any reference material similar to the project i want to develop.

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Hello, I want to develop an application which gives effects to desktop. Say its like i want to develop a clone of compiz on windows. I dont want every feature, but i cant understand where to start. I am leaning towards directx and c++ for the 3d effects. I the first feature i am going to implement is the expose feature. I want feedback from u people and want a starting point. Any experienced people share your codes or any reference material similar to the project i want to develop.

Probably want to look at WPF more specifically, maybe with C#/visual c++ starting point.

This guy's developed expose like application already and has released source i think it's a bit out dated but it's a foundation none the less to learn from http://blogs.labo-dotnet.com/simon/archive...1/08/11485.aspx

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Compiz is not just a simple program, it is a full window manager (one of many for X11). Windows has its own window manager which is not replacable and not extendable. This pretty much means that any custom window effects are out.

Things like Expose you could do though, by simply enumerating the windows that belong to a certain process, snapshot them, and then display the snapshots where you want on-screen. Pretty basic Win32 stuff. It wouldn't be the most efficient thing ever as it's completely independent of the window manager, but it's certainly doable. There are lots of programs out there already that do it.

If you wanted to try that, you should realistically be looking at native code. It is the type of application where performance is of utmost importance. WPF doesn't really have any relevance, it's a D3D-based GUI toolkit for managed code.

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