Re: GNOME Window Manager

[Sean Middleditch <elanthis users sourceforge net>]

On Tue, May 29, 2001 at 06:54:30PM -0700, Lion Kimbro wrote:
> 
>   Mawarkus,
> 
>   Well, here's more evidence that people get pretty emotional about their
> window managers..!
> 
>   When I say that it should be invisible, I mean that the user should almost
> never see any reference or evidence of something called a Window Manager
> even existing.

Aye.  The Window Manager is, to the average user, just a part of the desktop.  Not a completely seperate sub-system.  Most people don't even grasp the concept that the panel is a seperate process from everything else.  (what's a process, they might ask)

> 
>   For example, when you open up the control panel, there wouldn't be a
> window manager section, with a theme system entirely of it's own, with a key
> binding system entirely of it's own, etc., etc.,.

Yes.  The control-panel needs re-organizing.  I know I find it a bit of a pain, as do many others.  I'd be interested in helping out with that, whoever is in charge of the Control Panel.  It needs to go thru some testing with average users, and see what exactly are the biggest problems, etc.

> 
>   As an example of what some of the tight coupling would be like:
>   * GNOME themes would include data for customizing window layout.
>   * When a GNOME theme is selected, the data for customizing window layout
> would be somehow given to the GNOME compliant window manager.
>   * The window manager would read out the theme data, and set it's rendering
> accordingly.

This is a bit of a problem, however.  GNOME itself doesn't have themes.  There are GTK+ themes.  That only affects GTK widgets.  Technically, an app could integrate entirely with GNOME without even using GTK, although it would look out of place.  I think the meta-theme project would be needed here, though again, I've not heard of any updates to it in a while.  I certainly hope it is still being worked on.  ^,^

> 
>   That is, the window manager is invisible to the user; the user need never
> know that there is such a thing as a window manager.
> 
>   What happens when my girlfriend wants to use AfterStep? When a GNOME theme
> is selected, GNOME notices that it doesn't know how to talk to Afterstep,
> and doesn't do anything with the theme data for windows.
> 
>   That's one example. Here, lets do key bindings next:
>   The key bindings system is put into the GNOME control panel.
>   GNOME control panel fields requests to map keys. GNOME forwards those
> requests to the gnome compliant WM (window manager). What happens if the WM
> isn't GNOME compliant? Then the control panel doesn't field requests to map
> keys; Indeed, it doesn't even show the user the option.

Personally, I don't think *GNOME* or the WM should handle key-bindings.  The WM should handle window borders and placement.  Nothing else.  (well, for a GNOME integrated WM, that's all it should do - obviously WM's like afterstep are designed to do a litt more.)  I still like the way Oroborus had a seperate app that handling key bindings.  It had the ability to run apps.  With some CORBA/bonobo magick, it could do a *lot* more.

> 
>   The basic formula here, roughly worded, is:
>   GNOME makes the window manager it's bitch, unless it doesn't know anything
> about a particular window manager, in which case it disables/ignores it's
> own functionality that depends on it's bitch.

Wonderful anology.  ~,^  WM's now have the open-desktop protocol to follow that makes them *GNOME compliant*.  I think the issue isn't so much GNOME making exceptions and special cases for a WM, just that there be a WM that is stripped to the bare minimum for use with GNOME and GNOME alone.  Hell, even Sawfish minus some of the more advanced features (like keybinding, etc.) would work nice.  I mean, I like Sawfish, it and IceWM are my favorite WMs.  But there is still some clashing between either of them and the GNOME desktop.

> 
>   This is my educated guess about what the internals of the systems are
> like, and what can be done to render a window manager invisible under the
> GNOME system.

Hey, for a guess, that's not bad.  Gods know my guesses usually are so far off the mark they land in a different time zone.  ~,^

> 
>   Take care,
>     Lion Kimbro =^_^=
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mawarkus t-online de [mailto:mawarkus t-online de]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 5:00 PM
> To: gnome-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: GNOME Window Manager
> 
> 
> +++ Tue, May 29, 2001 at 03:51:14PM -0700 +++
> Lion Kimbro e-mails me. Film at 11. Reply right now, after the break.
> >   But by default, GNOME should have a window manager that is, for all
> > practical purposes, __invisible__.
> 
> Elaborate, please.
> 
> > You never know that it's there; it is
> > just a seamless part of the GNOME system.
> 
> Could you explain inhowfar Sawfish isn't?
> 
> mawa
> -- 
> Sack of rice tipped in China.
> 
> Film at 11.
> 
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