Re: Menus

[John R Sheets <dusk smsi-roman com>]

Jason Pellerin wrote:

> With the implementation I have in mind, each app would have its own menubar
> window. Think of it as the app's menus always being torn off, but always
> being in the same place relative to the root window, and hidden unless the
> app has focus. I realize that this is somewhat inefficient, but the CORBA
> method seems even moreso, and much harder to make happen with tweaks rather
> than a massive rewrite of the whole gnome menu system.

I wonder if it would be possible to reparent all the torn-off menubars to a
common window, i.e. a floating menu container....  When each GNOME app started up
in global-menu-mode, it would register its menu with the container, rather than
itself.  When each GNOME app got the focus, it could make a quick little CORBA
call with a single parameter, the menu id (which it passed when it registered the
menu).  Now, I'm no X-Windows guru either, but this sounds like it might be
workable.  **Assuming** tear-off menus can be reparented like that.

Anyone?

> What do you see as the problems with an implementation where each app has
> its own menu window (aside from positioning vs. WM issues)? Would the
> hiding and showing of the menubar windows necessitate even more WM hints,
> or could it be handled though appropriate signal handlers for focus/unfocus
> in the app?

Actually, if the global menu was a floating window container, the WM could handle
it just like any other window.  You'd have a 'window mode' hint to let the WM
know to put itself into GNOME-menu mode.  Also, you'd want to be able to tell the
WM to snap the menu to a screen edge, or to make it floatable.

John