Re: Suggestions

[Fábio Gomes de Souza <fbhome fabiogomes eti br>]

>
> What if I use Window Maker? Or E? Or IceWM? Would this mean that GNOME
> abandons the wm freedom? It is a nice feature it has since the
> beginning.
>
  From my point of view, the diversity of window managers in Unix is not a
feature. It is a serious problem. If we had decent window management in X,
people wouldn't need to write more window managers.

> > 	2. We should standardize this library, possibly in
> collaboration with KDE
> > people.
>
> One thing I would like to see is the projects saying clearly what they
> will do (aka "we want to work in this as a team" or "we do not want to
> work as a team"). No more "the other team blah blah" or "our team blah
> blah". When speaking about collaboration, you have to say yes / no and
> why (even if it is "we do not like, we want to work alone"), otherwise
> better say nothing. It seems it worked with the wm spec, but with
> other things they just waste time talking about nothing.
>

I said KDE people because they probably already had some experience in this
topic.

> > 	3. Then, we should create a MDI Container widget using the
> library to
> > decorate the MDI children and do other window managing stuff.
>
> And then why have window managers if you do window managment via
> widgets? Just wondering.
>


> > 	4. This widget could support detaching children (by
> creating true windows
> > from the MDI children);
>
> In X windows are windows, even if they are look like other things. The
> desktop background is one, and the window decors are more windows (so
> one window are ten or so X windows), even menus are windows, IIRC.
>
  True GdkWindows, I mean.

> Corners? Why do I have to put windows in the corners? IIRC MDI apps
> allow you to put windows anywhere inside the big window, even if they
> go out (the out part disappears). Of course, being able to limit the
> movement is nice, I have it in SF (set to some pixels, so I can move
> windows out if I want) but it will annoy other people.

  This would be useful for toolboxes, like in GIMP, Dia, etc..

>
> > small, 10-pixel high (or left-side with vertical text)
> > title bars; rolling up; and other nice features.
>
> Why left side? Why 10 pix? Why not the same font used in the rest of
> titles? If I have set it to 15 pix, there must be a reason (I like it
> or I need it to read it, are two reasons) and adding another config
> item for fun when can be derived from a basic setting is not nice,
> specially if it will be a feature targeted at newbies.

  These small title bars would be useful for toolboxes and tool dialogs
(like GIMP ones), to save screen space.

>
> With rolling up you mean shade? Already done, and in some wm like E
> you can have the effect animated and the vertical text too (someone
> provided a small C listing that would be nice to see included in SF,
> for the moment you can have the bar, but not the test, look how SF's
> microGUI theme decors dialogs).

  Yes. Shading children inside the MDI container.

> Use desktops / viewports as "big window"? Tell your windows to not
> show in task list? You already can do that, and also tell your wm that
> iconifing / deiconifing applies to groups, not to single windows. At
> least Sawfish does. Use a Xnest to run applications inside?

  I am not looking for ugly hacks to solve my individual problem. These I
can do by myself.

  Your solution works only if application developers specify which windows
are treated by the window manager this way, or the end-user will never
benefit from it.

  One great feature that MS-Windows MDI system has is that you can navigate
through the children (ie, with ctrl+tab) without touching windows in the
outside.

> I did, it was not bad (P166MMX, 64MB). Maybe cos I do not use fancy
> things. One thing people do a lot is using all the fancy items
> (including pixmap themes and animations) and the wonder why it is
> slow. I know they do, I had admin some machines and some users add
> things with no end. Other do not change defaults even if they do not
> like them (so hard? lazzy users? never think about it?).

  I use the newest Helix GNOME with the default theme, no background pixmap,
no pixmaps in menus, no pixmaps in the foot menu, and no pixmaps in the
dialogs. The window manager is Sawfish and, believe, it is painfully slow
when compared to Windows 98.

> I think other way: bad defaults are bad, as someone remind me in the
> GUI list. Customization is not. Most people that complain about how
> Linux behaves never reconfigure things, so defaults must be towards
> them, but never disallow customization, so others can have the
> environment they want and not the standard.

  Bad defaults are bad. But very complex customization is useless.