Their Crosses: Based On Xcb The New Window Manager,

A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment. They work in conjunction with the underlying graphical system which provides required functionality such as support for graphics hardware, pointing devices, and a keyboard, and are often written and created using a widget toolkit.In this dissertation, the current situation of window manager on the 3 most popular modern desktop operating systems is introduced firstly. The history of window manager is given as well, then the types, features and funtions of modern window manager are analyzed. Among the three OSes, the X Window System is the graphic subsystem on almost every UNIX-like platform, while its history and design principle are introduced then. The analysis of its lower window protocol, which contains communication process and main data types, is also given.Traditionally, almost every window manager which bases on X window system takes Xlib as its low level graphic library. However, because of Xlib's long history, there are some known defects in the design and implementation. However, XCB came out at 2001, which is becoming a better replacement of Xlib.In the later part of this dissertation, Xlib and XCB are introduced separately, their data types, APIs, pros and cons are also described. Then instances of their application are given, and a round-trip performances analysis and comparison is executed between the two libraries, which tells that the new XCB is about 30 times faster than the old Xlib.Among such many window managers, dwm is a light weight and open source window manger on X window system. Basing on these factors, dwm is chosen as a basis to implement a new window manager - Heterosis. It ports dwm from traditional Xlib to newer XCB, which boosts its performance.In the last part of this dissertation, the whole implementation of Heterosis is described, which includes the existing design of dwm, source codes version control, logical flow, detailed porting approches, encounted issues and debuging method etc, and the source codes of Heterosis are given too. Last, the design of modern window managers and remaining issues of Heterosis which can be improved are discussed.