adding session-management to a wm

[Chris Cannam <cannam all-day-breakfast com>]

I'm thinking of making the wmx window manager a bit
gnome-aware for the wmx-5 release.  (I've never even
attempted to use gnome, but hey, I like the principles.)
I have a few questions:

 * First, has anyone else hacked gnome-awareness
   into wmx already?  That'd be ideal...

 * Does anyone have strong opinions on which, if
   any, of the mwm hints they'd like wmx to support?
   (Please only answer this if you've used wmx.)

 * I've looked at the documents on www.gnome.org and
   the xsmp specifications, and I'm not quite clear
   on the role of the wm in the session-management
   process.

   I had assumed (or hoped) the wm was not supposed
   to be a manager itself, as gnome has a separate
   process for this.  But if that's the case, I can't
   see how the wm could save any useful state other
   than the number of virtual desktops available, and
   in particular I don't see how it can ensure that a
   newly-restarted client comes up on the correct
   desktop next time you log in.  The wm surely
   can't make any association between previous and
   new instantiations of a client application unless
   it is a session manager itself... can it?

   (Maybe there's some sort of idiot's guide on adding
   session-management support to a wm that I've
   overlooked?  Or maybe people who write window
   managers are just supposed to be clever.)

 * Do the gnome libraries enable applications to use
   window groups?  I'd rather like to support them,
   but I'm too lazy to make the effort unless I know
   lots of new software is going to make use.


Chris