Re: Tiling features in Mutter

[Oliver Mangold <o mangold googlemail com>]

On 15.03.2011 16:37, Owen Taylor wrote:

> The main constraints is that any code additions can't make it
> significantly harder to understand and maintain the core positioning
> code - the constraint and positioning logic is pretty complex and I
> don't want to spend a lot of time fighting regressions.
>
> But other than that I'm quite open to adding hooks in Mutter. I think
> hooks that a shell extension can use are likely more interesting than
> complete behaviors that a user would turn on with a GConf key.
>
> Probably the hardest thing that would need to be addressed is a way
> for shell extensions to add new global keybindings.
>
> - Owen
I guess, in general I could live with that. I'm myself not too hot to 
mess with code of something as fundamental as a window manager, if it 
can be done another way. Maybe we should make a complete list of all the 
additions we would need. Let me make a start:

- constraints/positioning: could it be a solution to add a hook that 
lets the extension circumvent the internal constraint logic of mutter? 
Something like, 'if a window is flagged as 'extension-controlled 
positioning', ask the extension where to put the window, then don't ask 
any further questions' ? (Alternatively mutter could post-apply some 
sensible constraints on the info the extension returns, like e.g. that 
the window stay within the work area of the current workspace.)

- keybindings: of course we would needed global keybindings.

- tabbing: that's what I'm worrying about most. This likely means a 
window frame would have to allow the extension to add custom gtk 
widgets. Do you have an idea if something like this could be easily 
exported. Also tabbing means something like multiple client windows 
share a common frame. It could maybe be emulated by unmapping all 
windows but the active one, but I don't know how nice this would look.