Re: WM hints again!!!!!!

[Max Watson <redline pdq net>]

At 10:44 AM 4/22/98 -0700, George wrote:
>> no. need 2 more "ALWAYS_ONTOP" and "ALWAYS_BELOW" - the panel has to
>> set "ALWAYS_ONTOP" so it is NEVER obscured by anything else the WM
>> creates or manages.
>
>optionally though I guess ...
>
>some people might want to put windows on top of the panel .... and if
>the panel is then a normal window, at least automatic placement will be
>aware of it
>
>so that's 4:
>
>STICKY
>DESKTOP_NUM
>ALWAYS_ON_TOP
>ALWAYS_BELOW
>
>anybody want to write a spec? ... it needs to work nicely around other
>browsers ... also they shouldn't be set from the app itself but from an
>api in libgnomeui
>
>if STICKY is not available, we need override redirect, if we can't
>set/get DESKTOP_NUM, ignore it as well as _ONTOP and _BELOW as tehre are
>no workarounds for those at all ... (and override redirect isn't a very
>good workaround either, but it should make it work with any wm)
>
>I don't see these as really gnome specific, but more arising from the
>capabilities of modern WMs which motif/openlook hints seems to miss ...
>it shouldn't be hard convincing WM writers to provide these, since it
>seems quite simple to honor them ... and they can easily be used in
>other apps (not gnome apps) ...
>

I will write up an API proposal and post it to this list tomorrow. In
addition to the four hints George proposes above, I believe three others
are needed. 
The first would be a hint that the wm sets to announce that it is "GNOME
aware," similar to the MOTIF_IS_WM wm hint. This can be used by libgnomeui
to determine whether to use the STICKY hint, or fallback to override
redirect if the WM_IS_GNOME_AWARE hint is not set, etc. 
The second would be a GNOME_PANEL_PROPERTIES hint that the panel(s) can set
to let a wm know it's size and position on screen so that the wm can
(optionally, as all hints are, of course) set aside that space when
maximizing windows or using smart placement, etc.
The third hint is another hint for the wm to set. This would be a hint to
specify which virtual desktop an application resides on. This hint would
not be needed by applications directly, but would be very useful for
session-management purposes. Currently all apps restart one desktop, or at
least they do on my machine running a modified icewm.

If anyone can come up with a standard way to accomplish these things, other
than a proprietary hint, please let me know. Otherwise I will post an API
proposal here tomorrow, and get started adding it to libgnomeui. BTW, how
does one go about getting write access to the CVS?

M.Watson redline@pdq.net