layer and strut hints are unnecessary

[Marko Macek <Marko Macek gmx net>]

Hi!

>  Give up the idea of layer/struts hints. A 'do not cover' 
>  hints *is* enough to do what we want. Matthias mentioned 
>  that there is a problem with auto-hiding applications. 
>  Let me explain how this problem can easily be solved: 

I agree about dropping the requirement for layer hint. If we drop layers,
we need a few hints:
    - desktop (stays below other windows)
    - fullscreen (window can occupy the entire screen, not just the
WORKAREA).
    - on-top

Does anyone see the need to keep the layer support as a requirement?
(We could specify it as a completely optional feature).

>    1) A 'do not cover screen area' hint. 

This is exactly what STRUT hint is. It is set on each app window and the
WM calculates the resulting WORKAREA from all the hints.

I don't think we need a do-not-cover hint.

>  I think it would be a good idea to have properties for 
>  communicating information about the frame window. 
>  This would greatly simplify 'sliding' applications into 
>  view like CDE panels do. Furthermore it would solve the 
>  problem mentioned above. The required information would 
>  include the frame geometry, the offset of the application 
>  window within the frame and the window id of the frame 
>  window. 

This is needed. There are two problems: 
  - geometry isn't really known until the window is reparented and that
can't (???) be done without showing the window (or it's icon).
  - there are lots of geometry variations possible (with MWM hints,
non/resizable windows, _NET_DECORATION, ...)

Java really suffers because of this problem, because it needs to set the
entire frame size and that just can't be done in X right now without
guessing.

Mark

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