Windowing system

[Gaspard--]

I'll edit the OP as we refine our ideas.

Proposal on how windows are structured:

Use a tree:

Build a tree, each window can have children, windows have a position, and are ordered according to a fictional z (which isn't stored).
Child windows have a relative positioning to their parent (This allows to have sub windows such as toolboxes etc.).
Every node can potentially display something (not only leaves). This will help with debugging and having a more unified data structure will avoid branching and alignment problems.
Ex: [A [a1 [a11, a12], a2], B [b1, b2]]
Workspaces are just top-level nodes.

Code structure:

Have a dynamic array of memory, windows are identified by indices into this memory.
We could probably limit the number of windows to 1024 (10 bits) and use the 6 remaining alignment bits for a mask. Let's use the full 16 bits, just in case.
Rendering would be a top down traversal: windows with the biggest z must be painted first. Therefor we should order the tree by z to ease traversal.
Identifying in which window the mouse is may prove hard.

Possible optimisations:

• Each node has a bounding box (allows quick pruning of branches while descending tree)
• Have a 2d array which repertories what windows where drawn in an n * n square (may be costly).
• While drawing, keep track of who drew last on the mouse.

Other things:

• Windows could have a filtering system: a node which shows only what's in a certain area for children. Should this be the default behaviour? This allows quite a few assumptions about bounding boxes etc.
• Pinning, the thing that people wanted
• Windows which display another part of the screen

Goals for this Sunday:

• Display windows side by side as they are asked.

[Gaspard--]

@raven-os/feathers I'd like your reactions, suggestions and ideas.
Does this seem ok for mouse and key handling @TheSheepKing @riamon-v ?

[Arignir]

This seems fine to me. Afaik, i3 works like that or something similar.

Limitation to 1024 subwindows is an issue tho, especially if you consider window's content to be subwindows (like toolboxes). You may reach this limit.

[Gaspard--]

Yeah true, editing.

[Gaspard--]

In progress, see branch https://github.com/raven-os/feathers/tree/window_graph