Re: GNOME wm hints proposal (Draft)

[Marko Macek <Marko Macek snet fri uni-lj si>]

Max Watson wrote:
>> >These conflict with MOTIF hints. The application should probably define
> >the MOTIF hints too?
> >What happens if they conflict? Would it make more sense to simply extend
> >the MWM hints?
> 
> Conflict? I do not see how. They are similar, but GNOME programs do not set
> mwm hints, so it would be fine. I know that most of this stuff is similar
> to already existing hints. But the existing ones are not being used
> properly. That is the only reason I suggested this. If we want to go with a
> more standard approach, that is great. If we can get everyone to agree. :)

Well, if gnome wants to be wm independant, it should really set the
motif
hints (and the usable icccm hints), because they are most widely
supported.

> >WIN_ICONS as an array of Pixmap handles.
> >It can contain any number of Icon,Mask pairs (Mask can be None) in
> >different
> >resolutions and possibly bit-depths. We should probably specify that
> >application should define 16x16,32x32,48x48 and other icons in the depth
> >of

> This sounds like a lot of trouble and work. I am too busy writing apps to
> sit around with the gimp for days on end writing icons. Perhaps there

Well, in that case you make just one icon and possibly scale it. It will
just look ugly.

> >>   Window gnomegroup;
> >
> >This also seems to already exist in some standard hints.
> >
> I know. I said that. :) But please read my explanation in the proposal as
> to why the standard "group" hint is inadequate due to inconsistent use
> among different applications.

You mean they have bugs or is it something else?
 
> >
> >Related to this: Does anyone know if setting WM_TRANSIENT to a hidden
> >group
> >leader window is the proper way to do application transient window under
> >X?
> >Adobe AcroRead seems to do this. I will be implementing this in icewm
> >sometime
> >soon.
> 
> I love new features in icewm! But why? Isn't application transient a
> contradiction? Not to dis your idea, I would just like an example.

Personally I dislike any modal windows. However some applications 
have the need to have application modal windows and want them on top
of all their windows, because only the modal window accepts any
input. See acroread to understand. It does WM_TRANSIENT to an 
unmapped group leader window.

> >An important issue: a gnome wm should not by default have a command
> >to do XKillClient in the menu. It is very dangerous if you miss a few
> >pixels
> >(this is annoying in the default fvwm setups). The command could be
> >available
> >elsewhere (icewm has it in the window-list context menu).
> 
> Huh? What window-list context menu? That may be one of the things I
> removed. :)

:-(

> Or do you mean the Kill command from the Utilities off of the main menu?

If that Kill command is xkill then that is equivalent.
 
> I has been suggested that this actually belongs in gdk, which is correct,
> since gdk handles the actual xwindows. I suggested gnome_app as a place,
> because I was unsure whether or not we wanted to mess with gdk/gtk since it
> is approaching 1.0.

Well, gtk needs some work before 1.0 and these additions will not
break anything.

Mark
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Marko.Macek@snet.fri.uni-lj.si      http://ixtas.fri.uni-lj.si/~markom/