Re: Icewm hacks for GNOME

[Marko Macek <Marko Macek snet fri uni-lj si>]

raster@redhat.com wrote:
> On  9 Sep, Felix Bellaby shouted:

> not necessary - wm sees iocn window id, pixmap id and mask Id - it caan
> query their sizes - if they dont conform the WM has many options.. not
> accept them - forcibly resize or scale the data etc...

The right way to implement icons should not require any scaling/image
processing from the WM. This just slows it down when it has better
things
to do.
 
> easy - provide pixmaps way too large and let the WM scale them down to
> wwhetever size it needs wherever it needs them.

The reality is that small scaled icons do not look as good as hand
drawn ones. 

> ->  The quoted proposal outlines the WIN_ICONS solution adopted by the icewm.
> ->  I am currently discussing these issues with Marko Macek, the author of icewm.
> ->  I think that the WIN_ICONS protocol is basically sound in that:
> ->
> ->  1) The wm explicitly indicates that it supports the protocol,
> ->
> ->  2) The wm provides information about the size of the icons it wants,
> 
> already in ICCCM - thats what i was bitching about before.

Yes. The ICCCM is not too flexible here, but good enough for me.
 
> ->  3) The app returns pixmaps of those sizes.
> 
> HELL I hope they do. cause currently none do.

Yes. This is really bad.

[proposal snipped]
> this covers everyhting your proposal has with much less work and
> overhead, better expandability and more app control and window manager
> compliance.

It also has disadvantages:
    - complex to implement in applications.
    - requires Shape extension to get shaped pixmaps. This slows things
down.
    - handling reparented windows in the wm is complicated (for example:
      icons/titles in a listbox. Scrolling will be slow).
    - Applications have to respond to drawing requests quickly,
otherwise
      there will be holes in the window manager windows/titlebars,...
    - dynamic icons can be just as easily done by changing the property
      on the application window.

Mark
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Marko.Macek@snet.fri.uni-lj.si        http://ana.fri.uni-lj.si/~markom/