Re: Windowmanager in session.wm

[James Henstridge <james daa com au>]

In that case, send wishlist priority bug reports to submit@bugs.gnome.org
about the package control-center.  Put wm-properties in the subject line
so it will find its way to Owen (who is writing wm-properties).

Tell him how you think the wm should be chosen.  This way there will be a
public record of your feature request (on http://bugs.gnome.org).

The wm-properties capplet is (or will be) the way a user can change the
window manager.  It may also allow you to display a dialog when you start
GNOME asking for a window manager in the future.  As someone who has never
had serious problems with wm's, and doesn't mind editing text files, I
don't know what is `intuitive' to most new users.

James Henstridge.

--
Email: james@daa.com.au
WWW:   http://www.daa.com.au/~james/


On Sun, 21 Mar 1999, Jan Gentsch wrote:

> It does not make it easier on packagers (I am the packager of the SuSE
> rpms)!
> 
> A user should never end up without a windowmanager. In two of the three
> cases you describe the user ends up with no windowmanager and has to
> find out how to get one (if he knows about the concept of a
> windowmanager, otherwise he is just annoyed). In the third case chances
> are not all that bad he ends up with a windowmanager he didnīt want and
> again has to find out where to change this. In addition he propably has
> now some "extra" directories he never intended to have.
> 
> If you start up gnome for the first time you should be prompted first
> thing to choose a windowmanager from the ones available on your
> particular system. If the user chooses not to choose (cancels or
> whatever might happen) he still gets a windowmanager, just any one which
> is available on the system (and this still canīt be decided at compile
> time). If on a multiuser system admin decides to remove a particular
> (for whatever reasons) once more you should prompt the user to choose a
> new windowmanager.
> A user should never be without a windowmanager.
> 
> It is a silly thing to do because one can't make a proper decision at
> compile time about the windowmanager, so itīs pointless to do so. For
> the SuSE packages we have been using a starter script which works around
> the problem in just the way I describe (it has been orignally thrown out
> by SuSE themselves and it also integrates nicely into the SuSEs way of
> starting windowmanagers which does away with editing any .xinitrc
> files). It basically works, though itīs not the ultimate solution, as
> well as that it isnīt a solution for everyone and it requires some
> external components. 
> 
> Let the user decide at the stage a decision can be made, that is once
> gnome is being started. Not any earlier, nor later.
> 
> Jan
> 
> "Jesse D . Sightler" wrote:
> > 
> > On Sat, 20 Mar 1999 12:35:03 Jan Gentsch wrote:
> > > Read my previous post and once more:
> > > It is a bad as anything. A default windowmanager should not be decided
> > > at compile time!
> > > You donīt know which windowmanagers will be available on the system the
> > > packages will eventually be installed on(I am talking about package
> > > making).
> > > Jan
> > 
> > Why is this silly?  What other option is there?  If it isn't decided at compile
> > time, then the first time you run it, it won't know what WM to use.  So it will
> > display a blank screen and you will have to choose your WM at runtime.  If it does
> > have a default chosen at compile time, and the default doesn't exist on your machine,
> > you get a blank screen and then have to choose your WM at runtime again.  If it does
> > have a default chosen at compile time, and the default does exist, then all should
> > come up fine, and once again, you will have to choose your preferred WM at runtime.
> > 
> > There is no way around the issue of having this decided somewhere.  A default just makes
> > it easier on packagers, etc.  :-)
> > 
> > ---------------
> > Jesse D. Sightler
> > http://www3.pair.com/jsight/
> > 
> > "An honest answer can get you into a lot of trouble."
> >          - Anonymous
>