In an OpenGL environment (and later maybe with other APIs from the Open… family) I want to composite both XULRunner windows and X11 windows into one image, but under maximum control of Javascript. My thoughts so far are that I’ll need to write an XPCOM component that uses OpenGL and Xlib/XCB libraries to do that, hopefully with Javascript registering event listeners on the component in order to be notified of OpenGL/X11 events. I mention X11 as priority, but a cross-platform solution would be beneficial.

So, am I proposing a good solution, or am I barking up the wrong tree and missing some interesting tricks hidden in Mozilla’s runtime?

Regards, Erik

You’re right about the daisy-chaining. I’m not 100% sure if this is already possible (using the D3D9 layers backend), as I’m not sure of how well Direct2D interacts with DirectX 9 (Direct2D uses DirectX 10 under the covers). It might work, and we should do some experimentation on that!

Also, you don’t have to worry about prefs regarding hardware acceleration – we’re going to make it Just Work!

“That being said, you could (and, in the future, we may) combine Direct2D with a Direct3D 10 layers backend, for the best of both worlds.”

Does this mean that both approaches would effectively be daisy chained? So Layers analyses the page to split it up into that are hardware accelerated using the D3D layers back-end and other parts which are rendered using Cairo, which in turn is hardware accelerated using the D2D back-end. Correct?

And if so, isn’t this already possible? Or would it only work with a D3D 10 back-end for layers (and not with the current D3D 9 version)? And if so, is this because D3D 10 (living underneath D2D) cannot be used in combination with D3D 9 (as used by the current layers back-end)?

In any case, such a “best of both world” scenario makes a lot of sense (at least on Windows), because if the alternative would be to have pref setting that lets users choose between “software rendering”, “Layers (partial D3D/OpenGL acceleration” and “Direct2D acceleration”, confusion among users (even those with above average technical skills) would be major I think .

Regards,

Matthias