Status Manager

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

This is a brief description of a means to handle a status dock for
status indicators of any X toolkit on any X desktop. Familiarity with
ICCCM and X programming are assumed for the sake of brevity.

_NET_STATUS_MANAGER

The status manager is an X client which provides a means for other clients
to present status information and provide some complementary functions.
It is a selection manager as described in ICCCM 2.0 section 2.8.

In addition to the targets required of all selection owners and managers,
the _NET_STATUS_MANAGER will recognize a selection request to target
INSERT_PROPERTY with a property of type WINDOW. When the request is
received the window identified in the target will be reparented and
mapped. The manager will then select for SubstructureNotify on the
inserted window so that space may be reallocated in response to a
DestroyEvent on the window.

Clients wishing to provide a status indicator will detect the presence
of the _NET_STATUS_MANAGER in any standard way. When a status manager
has been detected, the client will create its status window and place
the XID of the new window as the property of a window which it will use
as a requestor. The client will not map this window. It will then request
conversion of _NET_STATUS_MANAGER with target INSERT_PROPERTY and the
property on the requestor containing the XID to be inserted. Upon
successful conversion, the client will select for SubstructureNotify
on the manager window so that it may resume watching for a suitable
selection manager in response to DestroyNotify on that window.



Cheers,
Gregory Merchan