2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?

fossMan

Thanks @alan_g.
What exactly is the "mirclient API", is that an abstraction or a specific set of files? Could you give a small example e.g a line of code showing dependence on that API, and perhaps how a Wayland extension could replace it?

alan_g

@fossMan said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

What exactly is the "mirclient API", is that an abstraction or a specific set of files? Could you give a small example e.g a line of code showing dependence on that API, and perhaps how a Wayland extension could replace it?

The mirclient API is the API provided by libmirclient.so. It is the API through which Mir proposed to support "Convergent" application toolkits. There are various bits of UBports relying on this API that need rework to Wayland (so learning to do that will remain useful after this exercise).

Here's some mirclient API code:

            Surface surface{mir_connection_create_render_surface_sync(DecorationProvider::connection, width, height)};

            auto const buffer_stream =
                mir_render_surface_get_buffer_stream(surface, width, height, mir_pixel_format_xrgb_8888);

            auto window = WindowSpec::for_gloss(DecorationProvider::connection, width, height)
                .set_fullscreen_on_output(output_id)
                .set_event_handler(&handle_event_for_background, this)
                .add_surface(surface, width, height, 0, 0)
                .set_name(wallpaper_name).create_window();

and some equivalent Wayland code:

        ctx.surface = wl_compositor_create_surface(globals.compositor);
...
        ctx.shell_surface = wl_shell_get_shell_surface(globals.shell, ctx.surface);
        wl_shell_surface_set_fullscreen(
            ctx.shell_surface,
            WL_SHELL_SURFACE_FULLSCREEN_METHOD_DEFAULT,
            0,
            ctx.output.output);
...
        auto const shm_pool = make_scoped(
            make_shm_pool(globals.shm, stride * height, &ctx.content_area),
            &wl_shm_pool_destroy);

        ctx.buffer = wl_shm_pool_create_buffer(
                shm_pool.get(),
                0,
                width, height, stride,
                WL_SHM_FORMAT_ARGB8888);

https://github.com/MirServer/mir/pull/669/files#diff-ea35a63c157fb0d09e5713c6ee0b1dbe

fossMan

@alan_g said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

The mirclient API is the API provided by libmirclient.so.

Thanks for the example. Is there any way to download an example of a libmirclient.so file without installing anything? The closest I got was a mention on this Ubuntu package

EDIT: or perhaps there is some documentation of the libmirclient API in order to understand better exactly what parts of the code is addressing the API?

alan_g

@fossMan https://mir-server.io/doc/group__mir__toolkit.html

fossMan

I would like to look at these issues but can't spare the focus time until start of June.

alan_g

@fossMan said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

I would like to look at these issues but can't spare the focus time until start of June.

I imagine there will still be issues left for you when you have the time. 8-)

dobey

@alan_g I see in the Mir 1.4.0 release discourse mention of the layer-shell extension. If I understand correctly how this extension works, we should be able to use it for re-implementing the trusted overlays, no?

If we could do that, and get it done soon, that would be a huge step forward in being able to use unity8 on wayland.

alan_g

@dobey said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

@alan_g I see in the Mir 1.4.0 release discourse mention of the layer-shell extension. If I understand correctly how this extension works, we should be able to use it for re-implementing the trusted overlays, no?

I agree we should map out Wayland protocols that can help replace mirclient functionality. But in this specific case, I don't think layer-shell addresses the same concerns as trusted prompts, so I don't immediately see how you imagine using it.

I'll have a closer look at this idea after the holiday weekend to see what I've missed.

GizmoChicken

@alan_g said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?

Given recent progress, how about 2020Q1: Time to make Unity8 great again?

alan_g

@GizmoChicken said in 2019: Time to make Unity8 great again?:

Given recent progress, how about 2020Q1: Time to make Unity8 great again?

I like it! Maybe we can just rename this thread?