Window Manager Implications

Because the Creator accelerator default visual is not an overlay, problems occur when overlay windows are not override-redirect (i.e., wrapped with a window manager decoration window). The Solaris-supported window managers olwm, mwm, and dtwm always wrap toolkit subwindows with decoration windows in the default visual. This occurs even if an application specifies a non-default visual for the pop-up window.

For example, when the default visual is 8-bit underlay PseudoColor, the window manager will wrap it with an 8-bit underlay decoration window even if an application specifies to a toolkit that a pop-up window is to be placed in the 8-bit overlay PseudoColor visual. Thus, the pop-up continues to damage other underlay windows, which is not the intended effect.

Use the following workarounds to this limitation:

• Require that the end user configure the default visual as the overlay visual by typing the following before starting the window system:

  /usr/sbin/ffbconfig -defoverlay true

Keep in mind that the overlay visual has less colormap entries than the underlay 8-bit visual. Thus, the default colormap may fill up sooner, which may lead to increased colormap flashing.

• Rewrite the application to create override redirect pop-ups and manage them directly through Xlib, bypassing the toolkit.