File Manager Pinboards

PatrickNew · 04-01-2007, 10:52 PM

When a file manager displays a pinboard, like Nautilus or Rox, how do they do it exactly? Specifically, are they drawing directly onto the root window, or are they creating a window, fullscreen-ing it, and putting it behind everything else?

MS3FGX · 04-02-2007, 01:40 AM

As far as I understand, they are drawing directly onto the root window in those situations.

PatrickNew · 04-02-2007, 11:58 AM

Okay. I've seen how to draw directly onto the root window with GDK, but I always imagined that they were essentially just pasting up a big version of a file manager window with all dressings removed, which I always assumed were something roughly equivalent to a GtkIconView. Can you make the root window into a GtkContainer that can be packed into? Or do these file managers implement the icons from scratch?