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Afterstep 2.0 Beta Includes XML Graphics System

Posted by Hemos on from the from-the-wayback-machine dept.

vaevictus writes "Afterstep just released its 2.0 Beta 1, after a long merge from its development branch. One of the most interesting new features is an XML-based graphics system, where any picture for any part of the WM can be a simple chunk of XML, which can do transformations, scaling, gradients and some other nice graphics mods. I've personally used this to cut my 1600x1200 image size from a 2.4mb PNG to a total of about 37kb. This leads to some very compact themes. If you're not familiar, AfterStep is one of the older WMs out there still in active development; all of you WindowMaker fans should check out the WM your WM branched off of, so long ago."

11 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. Already testing it now.. by Shivaji+Maharaj · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Looks pretty slick. But the window movement is bit shaky and the screen jitters sometimes.

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    1. Re:Already testing it now.. by killthiskid · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So I have a question... when I hear XML and graphics, and I instantly think SVG... does this format have anything to do with XML? Is it compatiable? Is there an XSL transformation you can do to turn it into SVG?

  2. Windowmaker + AS by flikx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Seriously folks, it's about time WindowMaker merges back with AfterStep. Dividing the great AS WM is the sole reason why KDE and GNOME dominate at this point.

    If the WindowMaker project rejoined AfterStep, AfterStep could actually become a viable window manager on it's own terms. As opposed to relying on the publicity of the GNUStep project, and WindowMaker for support in the first place.

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  3. XSLT to convert to SVG by stonebeat.org · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Any XSLT available to covert the AfterStep XML to SVG???

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  4. Re:The good news by vaevictus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Actually, AfterStep 2.0 typically consumes less than 8mb ... slimness is one of its strong suits... still.

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  5. Why switch from WindowMaker? by ikekrull · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So what does AfterStep do that WindowMaker doesn't? Its not very clear from the website.

    WindowMaker CVS has antialiased fonts, and with a little bit of work on icons and tile backgrounds, my desktop looks great.

    The menu editor/prefs utility is easy to use, the clip's desktop switching is perfect for what I want, theres nothing obvious about AfterStep that would make me want to switch back.

    WindowMaker + GNOME apps/libs + ROX-Filer make up my ideal GUI environment.

    As far as I know, theyre both written in C, as opposed to Objective-C for GNUStep, they both attempt to mimic some or all aspects of NeXTSTEP, and WindowMaker was created because the Afterstep crew was too anal about incorporating features that did not appear in the original NeXT system.

    So now theyre adding features to Afterstep - dumping the whole idea behind what AfterStep was - 'Its strictly a clone of NeXTSTEP', and somehow this is a step (STEP?) forward?

    So why switch from WindowMaker, when AfterStep is clearly just playing catch-up now?

    That being said, there are a few rough edges in Window Maker, so perhaps competition from AfterStep will smooth them out.

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    1. Re:Why switch from WindowMaker? by sashav · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Dude, Image manipulation code in AS 2.0 being as advanced as it is is much smaller then in older versions, and is actually much smaller then venerable ImLib.

      Saving few KB of png files is not an issue. Issue is when you need to convert all your icons from one colorscheme to another. I can do it with one click - can you ?

      there are no new dependancies. built in xml parser takes like 50 lines of code ( as it does not do much of traditional XML bloat parsing )

      Making prefs menu is not as easy as you think, and before you can do that - you need to fix all other basic parts of the system. Which we done. And now we can implement prefs menu, that will blow you away.

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      Property of AfterStep Window Manager.
  6. simple animations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    this sounds like it could be great if you were able to script events. you could animate vector translations of shapes and colours for some really crazy UI effects!

  7. Hrm by lvdrproject · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Hm, well, i'm a big Window Maker fan, myself. The whole *Step thing intrigues me, though, be it AfterStep, GNUStep, WinStep, or whatever. I just like the way the system works. However....

    I realise that Window Maker and the like are pretty much designed to be "minimalist", but they seem to be lagging very far behind KDE and GNOME in terms of interface design. For example, just looking at the AfterStep screen-shots on the site (before it gets Slashdotted, heh), i'm liking the way the system is designed, in general, but it looks hideous. The graphics used in the interface are jagged, the window frames and buttons are almost industrial in their simplicity and lack of creativity, and the icons still look like really bad GIFs. And, like i said, i'm a fan of Window Maker, and prefer it over any other window-manager, but it's guilty of this too. They all look like something you might see running on a Commodore or an Amiga.

    I know that they're constantly being improved and updated, and i realise the importance of laying down a proper foundation before you go around making things look nice and anti-aliased and all that jazz, but i think a lot of the reason GNOME and KDE each have such a huge following is because they're very pleasant to look at. I think WM and AfterStep and the like could benefit very much from trying to add in a little "eye candy" here and there. You don't need any gimmicks, but i really don't think it would negate the intended minimalism of the system if there were just "themes" and icons and what-not of the same calibre as those you might find looking at Nautilus or Konqueror.

    Regardless of all that, Window Maker will remain my favourite window-manager, and i'll continue to recommend it to those looking for a good UNIX interface. And the whole XML graphics thing sounds really neat, also. Just wish they were "up there", in terms of what i mentioned, with GNOME and KDE. :/

  8. Re:XML Image format? by csbruce · · Score: 3, Interesting

    <element x="0" y="0">
    <component name="red" value="10" /> ...

    Yep, the standard XML-bloat joke. Here is the serious solution: binary encoding. I have done some testing by defining a simple demonstration XML image format as:

    <XmlDemoImage version="1.1.0">
    <Header>
    <Width>x</Width>
    <Height>y</Height>
    <SampleType>byte</SampleType>
    </Header>
    <Scanline row="i"> <!-- optional attr: filter="diff" -->
    <RgbSamples>r g b r g b ...</RgbSamples>
    </Scanline> ...
    </XmlDemoImage>

    If we can avoid the bizarre and hugely self-defeating but all-too-common urge to way-overstructure the pixel representation and use raw binary encoding especially for the dense arrays of numbers, the representation and performance is essentially equivalent to that of PNG format itself (though for some images, BZIP2 compression is significantly better). Here is a study of the issue. On an Athlon-XP1800+ Linux box, I get a raw (Binary)XML reading speed of 188 MB/sec for an uncompressed image. W3C is holding a workshop on binary XML encoding in September, so it may finally be prepared to humour such radical efficiency with XML.

  9. Agreed! by ArthurDent · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I, too, used AfterStep back when I only had an 8-bit display on my HP workstation (circa 1998). The trouble is that some of the screenshots that are still on that site are the same ones from when I switched, and the new ones don't look that different either!

    I've become a blackbox user because it looks nice, is easy to use and theme and it's small. I even use blackbox for windows!

    So, congrats to the AfterStep folks on the new version. Too bad it's about 4 years too late!

    Ben