_GNOME_PANEL_ACTION Protocol

[Ben Jansens <xor orodu net>]

Hello all,

I recently heard about the new _GNOME_PANEL_ACTION Protocol being introduced
in GNOME 2.4, and I must say I was not enthused.

This would seem to go directly against all the efforts that have been going
into standardizing between desktops, and interoperating with programs
outside the GNOME base distribution.

With this new protocol, I will no longer be able to choose my Window Manager
if I want to use gnome-panel, and pop up the Run dialog with Alt-F2 like I
have grown to love. Now I am forced to either run Metacity, or add support
for this GNOME specific protocol to all Window Managers that I would like to
use with GNOME. I think is is rather unfair.

As well this will cause users who do not run the GNOME environment, but only
run the very excellent gnome-panel in some other environment/setup to suffer
unduly.

If such a protocol is to be used, it should be standardized via
freedesktop.org. I very much do not want to see a return to the dark ages of
non-interoperability that we are finally escaping from.

Please consider either having gnome-panel able to grab keys itself still, or
discussing and standardizing this protocol outside of the GNOME project.

Thanks,
Ben

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