Re: An alternative to MDI

[raster redhat com]

On 10 Apr, Julian Regel shouted:
->  
->  > actually most of what you say is infact a window-manager issue.. one
->  > which I hope to address in Enlightenment after the 0.14 rewrite. I
->  > and considering ways of having virtual desktops AND allow you to
->  > drag one infront/behind the other... :) I COULD do this in X if I
->  > pull a few tricks out of my bag... The way to do "private screens"
->  > (which is what they were on Amigas as opposed to public screens
->  > which was workbench and you could open other public screens setting
->  > any one of them as the default) would be to ONLY allow mappings of
->  > window onto that desktop of all windows in the group of the group
->  > leader that has "woned" the screen. I'm sure I coudl tage "leader"
->  > windows with extar flags and allow butotns to be attached to them
->  > that will make the group leader own that desktop.. instantly forcing
->  > all mappings of windows NOT in that leaders group to be diverted to
->  > other hidden desktops. Now effectively we have that app and and its
->  > follower windows owning that desktop. Just as long as apps are nice
->  > and set their group leader correctly if they open lots of windows
->  > (ie like gimp) thsi shoudl work like a charm! :)
->  
->  So would this require that all GNOME apps be rewritten to support 
->  screens (not that this should be a problem this early in the 
->  development cycle) or is it GTK that needs modifying? What about 
->  non-GNOME compliant apps?

apps in general just need to set the group leader hint:

XWMHints wmhint;

wmhint.window_group=group_leader_window_id;
wmhint.flags=WindowGroupHint;
XSetWMHints(display,window,&wmhint);

Well that's the Xlib way of doing it.. :)

it's not a matter of supporting screens.. it's a matter of using ICCCM
to provide information to the WM that it can use later as it pleases..
how the WM uses this information may vary wildly... but providing it is
a good idea. The WM may do anything from ignore the info, to use it to
do something useful like screens etc. Having Screens/desktops
public/private et.c is just a possible way of using the group hints...
there could be many others.

->  Also, what would happen to applications such as the Panel? Would the 
->  user be able to choose to have it appear on all screens private and 
->  public or would it only appear on public screens?

no... the panel would exist everywhere.. it bypasses the WM using the
override redirect flag. The WM has no say in this.

->  
->  > as for changing res/depth ont he fly.. no X cannot do that. But I
->  > could emulate the rest... :)
->  
->  Julian
->  +----------------------------------------------+
->  | Julian Regel: julian@white-tower.demon.co.uk |
->  |     http://www.white-tower.demon.co.uk/      |
->  +----------------------------------------------+
->  
->  

-- 
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