Re:Why the size of the title bar, was Re: How do I compute the size of the title bar?

["Daniel M. German" <dmg csg uwaterloo ca>]

 Ted Milker twisted the bytes to say:

 >> I want to support negative location specifications in the geometry in
 >> the "right" way, ie. a negative x axis is relative to the right edge
 >> of the application window, not to the left one. I posted about it some
 >> time ago.

 Ted> I don't know what GGV is, I don't think it's a window manager, but,

Yes, it is an application.

 Ted> it's the window manager's job to handle these things, not your

No, it is the job of libgnomeui and gtk/gdk actually (with the help of
the windows manager, of course).  The window manager does not get the
geometry spec, it only gets the hints from the app, via X11 (correct
me if I am wrong).

I have digged into the problem and I have learnt a lot since my
original post today this morning. I am finally using those Xlib books
that I bought 8 years ago :)

gnome_parse_geometry is the responsible for parsing the geometry. 
But it is incomplete. It does not understand that negative locations
are meaningful neither that -0 <> +0.

gnome_parse_geometry is easy to fix, since it is a relatively simple
routine. Furthermore, it can fallback into XParseGeometry. So far, so
good.

In fact, I believe that the application code should not even have to
parse the geometry. That is why sooo many gnome applications ignore
geometry, lets try some apps:

It uses does:

gnome-terminal 


it does not:

gimp
gnumeric
gedit
gnome-run
gaim
gtalk

...

Out of 7 apps I tried, only one worked. This lets me wonder, do nobody
requires the geometry in their applications? I certainly hate to have
to use the mouse to place my windows.

We should add geometry handling into gtk or gnome the same way that
there are several optinos already (like --help) and state in the
guidelines that every application should use
gnome_init_with_popt_table so that the gtk options are used. 
Take a look at gftp, it does not even handle the --help option!


Ok, back to the problem.

I assume you know about win_gravity. ONce I know that I need, say,
SouthEastGravity, the problem becomes how to pass this gravity to the
windows manager. In Gnome/gtk/gdk there does not seem to be a way to
do it for the application window. They are all assumed to be
NorthWestGravity.

How to fix it does not seem to be trivial (at least to me,
inexperienced X11 programmer). 


For many, this might not be a big deal, but if the feature is there,
we should use it, IMHO.

 Ted> program.  If the window manager you're using isn't doing what you
 Ted> think it should, then you should talk to the authors of the wm.  This
 Ted> is not an application level problem.  As an X11 application author,
 Ted> it's your job to give hints to the window manager, but the window
 Ted> manager has every right to ignore them or do whatever it wishes with
 Ted> them.  This is stressed time and time again in the Xlib Programming
 Ted> Manual and the ICCCM documentation.

 Ted> Ted


 Ted> -- 
 Ted> To unsubscribe: mail gnome-devel-list-request@gnome.org with "unsubscribe"
 Ted> as the Subject.


--
Daniel M. German                  "Diminutive as a mote of dust,
                                   a mere peck of the pen, a crumb on the
                                   keyboard, the full stop --the period--
                                   is the unsung legislator of our
    Alberto Manguel ->             writing systems"
http://csgwww.uwaterloo.ca/~dmg/home.html
dmg@csg.uwaterloo.ca