Re: X Background Diversions?

[Rainer Mager <rvm@example.com>]

Ahh yes, I remember one such program called XWatchWin (or something like
that).  It allowed a person to look at another's complete X screen.  I never
managed to get it to compile in Linux but I ran it on a Sun once and
although it was slow it did give me a large window that showed another
person's X screen.  I got about 1 update every 10 seconds.  Actually it was
a pretty sleazy program to use, almost made me feel like I was invading
someone's privacy.

Anyway, if it was possible for that program to steal the X output from
someone else's display that you are right, it's certainly possible to do it
on your own display and redirect it to the root window.  One question comes
to mind, however. If the originating window is minimized will it still work?

>Bzzt.  I don't know a program that does this, but I know how to do it:
>put it in a window, xd that window, xud that pixmap to root, kill the
>original window.  If you must do it in real time (anime, ne), you can
>write a program to steal the X protocol directed to that program's
>window and display it somewhere else (this a generalization of
>"reparenting", which all user-level (ie, X) window managers do).
>There are general-purpose programs for doing that so that several
>users can share the output of one program on different displays (HP
>developed a good one, it's in the contrib distribution), but I don't
>know if any of them support display to root.


About XV...as far as I know everything XV can do can be done via command
line unless its something like cropping where the mouse is needed.  Even in
that case it might take coords.  I've definitely used it for other
manipulations in batch mode.