
"This is a new attempt to resolve the issues plaguing multi-window applications on Wayland. Those applications want to give the compositor a hint where specifically a window should be placed (or sometimes moved to), as well as whether a window should stay permanently layered above other windows of the same application, regardless of focus.
...
The new protocol in this MR introduces the concept of a "zone", a new per-client local coordinate system, provided by the compositor and attached to one output, in which it can place its windows. The client can only know window positions relative to the zone the compositor has assigned to it, and a zone can be a defined rectangle with fixed dimensions, or an infinite space without any limits.
A zone can be reshaped by the compositor at any time, and the compositor can "eject" windows from a zone at any time. A client can share the zone with trusted other processes by sharing its handle with them.
That way, any external process that is contributing a window can create its window in relation to the other windows by sharing the same coordinate system (as long as the clients trust each other to exchange tokens), as well as overlay or have its windows overlayed by the primary application.
A zone is a per-client entity, and clients must not assume it reflects any real object like the monitor geometry.
A zone uses resolution-independent coordinates, same as the application windows themselves."
Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed viaTwitter,LinkedIn, or contacted viaMichaelLarabel.com.
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