Re: WM Compliance

[Adam Jacob <adam cybertrails com>]

On Mon, Jun 08, 1998 at 02:36:21PM -0500, Max wrote:
> I thought there was plenty of information out there on this topic. A
> GNOME wm should implement the MWM hints. Raster wrote up some stuff
> (with code from E) that is available on the GNOME web site. There is a
> proposal that Marko Macek made re wm hints; there is a link to that
> proposal from the GNOME web site under "proposals."

	All of that information is available, but I've never seen 
a document that puts down the things neccessary for Gnome to function
as designed.

	For example:

	1. Honoring the MWM Hints.
	2. Honoring the extended hints contributed by Marco Macek.
	3. Gnome-Aware session management? (Is this really required? Maybe
what really needs to happen is that any internal session management in
the WM responds correctly to the termination signal given it when 
gnome-session exits.)

	Are there any other things that have been proposed? 
	
> Not to say that the proposal is complete. There are many
> ambiguities and gaps, some of which seem to be intentionally left open
> for the WMaker people to help fill in.

	What are those ambiguities?  

	I'm going to start compiling a list on the GnomeMaker website..
we can use that as a reference point for actually writing the 
document itself.

> I suppose if the color-reactive
> (or *-reactive) stuff ever gets written, a wm should have some support
> for that as well. I have also messaged the Amiwm people, hoping to see
> what they may have to contribute to GNOME<->wm interaction. 

	Are there active plans for Gnome to be color-reactive? Would the
WindowManager even need to have support for that, or could that be
a completley application controlled thing.  (From what I remember of
the proposal, it was to put a small "light" indicating state on the 
toolbar and mini-icon of app's, correct?) Wouldn't that be accomplished
most easily by simply having the app draw the "lamp" onto it's
mini-icon itself?

> I would be very interested in writing a canonical document describing
> "GNOME awareness" for a wm. Is there anything the WMaker people have
> that would be good for GNOME to take advantage of? I am in particular
> thinking of the window menu stuff. :) I guess I am off to comb through
> the GNOME list archives to see what people have wanted in a GNOME wm
> over the last 9 months.

	Great!  I'll start putting together a basic framework for a
HOWTO/FAQ, and see if we can't actually get something together to
hand to the developers, to make their lives easier.

							Adam
P.S.:
The free-software model of co-operation kicks ass.  :)
How cool is the fact that you can bring something up, and instantly
intelligent people have something to contribute.
Too nifty.

(Adam goes off to play with his Baby-GNU)

-- 
Adam Jacob                  E-Mail: <adam@cybertrails.com>
Systems Administrator       WWW: http://www.cybertrails.com
Cyber Trails                "Unix is a four letter word...
602-906-1752                 VI is a two letter abbreviation"