XDRIVER StaticColor

[Carl Anderson]

Radim Blazek wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> XDRIVER  in grass5.0 now starts on my RH6 with PseudoColor visual class
> (after updates 7 weeks ago?):
> 
> d.mon start=x0
> using default visual which is PseudoColor
> ncolors: 256
> Graphics driver [x0] started
> 
> How can I start it with StaticColor to avoid Color Flashing?
> 

::Only 8 bit display users need note this::
If you can, change the depth of your display to 16 or 24.
That would be in /etc/X11/XF86Config for most Linux users.

The color flashing is an animated colormap.  The colormap used when the
mouse is inside the GRASS display window is different from the colormap
used outside the window. 

What you want is an unchanging colormap, that means to use the public
colormap for your display.  So the colormap used in the window is the
same as the colormap outside the window.

I had altered the colormap behavior of d.mon to allow users
with few colors available, to run GRASS.  Taking the viewpoint
that an animated color palette was worth the annoyance of being able to
run GRASS.  


I suspect that some people will want to force the use of the public
colormap with a flag.  maybe d.mon start=x0 -publicmap??

This would cause fewer colors to be available to the GRASS display
window, but would eliminate the animated palette.

This would be still a short term fix to a greater display problem.

The color allocation routines need to be redone to try to reuse existing
palette entries.  Or maybe GRASS  needs to lauch non truecolor displays
with messages like

d.mon start=x0
using default visual which is PseudoColor 
  your Display Depth is 8bits
  GRASS really wants lots of colors
  your Display really can't provide enough colors
  It will try anyway.  For better results 
  change your Display depth to 16 or 24 bits.
  for More inforation see docs/XDisplays.txt
ncolors: 256
Graphics driver [x0] started



C.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------
Carl Anderson 
Fulton County, Georgia
Environment & Community Development
GIS
404 730-8026
candrsn at fultonecd.org