Re: TaskList idea

[Michael ROGERS <M Rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

>	Can the application control the icon which appears in the
>tasklist?
>
>	First, I think the app should be able to control the icon that is
>used to represent it.
>
>	Second, if you can control the icon, you can do notifications
>through the shape/color/flashing of the graphical icon.

Apps are allowed to supply icon windows for the window manager to use when the
app is iconified, and the app can draw to its icon window while it is
iconified. If the app doesn't want to animate its icon it can just supply an
icon pixmap. Unfortunately the size of icons and icon windows is set by
the window manager, so the tasklist cannot be sure that they will be the 
correct size (16*16?) to swallow. Also the icon windows may be reparented by
the window manager, so the tasklist may not be able to swallow them.

A tasklist/pager implemented as part of the WM would be able to do what you
ask. A standalone tasklist cannot, because X was not designed with such a
thing in mind.


Michael Rogers