Re: Setting window properties (always on top, ...) in gnome shell extension

[Amy Chan <mathematical coffee gmail com>]

Thank you. I looked into libwnck which does all this stuff from python 
(now there's an example of what I wish clutter 
had):http://developer.gnome.org/libwnck/stable/WnckWindow.html

After a bit of experimenting, it turns out in python I can simply do:

import wnck
wnck.screen_get_default().get_active_window().make_above()

and that's done!

So while I wait for the meta_window_set_xxxx stuff to eventually be 
exposed to the JS interface, I may experiment with somehow calling a 
python script from within JS to do that bit of functionality (I recall 
seeing this done in another extension - will have to look it up).

Or even better, since wnck seems to use the whole gobject introspection 
thing, maybe it has JS bindings I can somehow get?

cheers,
Amy

On 24/04/12 13:23, Jasper St. Pierre wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 23, 2012 at 11:11 PM, Amy C<mathematical coffee gmail com>  wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > As part of teaching myself how to make gnome shell extensions, I
> > decided to just add an item to the menu of the panel's title bar that
> > allows the user to select options like always on top/always on this
> > workspace.
> >
> > I notice in the mutter API there is a meta_window_set_above in
> > window.c but this doesn't seem to be exposed to the JS interface.
> > Through a bit of trial and error I also seem to be able to call
> > window.set_property('above',true) but this function appears to do
> > nothing (there is a 'title' property I tested on and using
> > set_property on this also seems to do nothing).
>
> Ugh. All the MetaWindow properties are all read-only. It seems they
> were only added for the notifies.
>
> Yeah. metacity was originally designed as a process, not a library, so
> it doesn't really do things the way it should. I'm working on making
> metacity/mutter less of a program with an API and more like a library,
> because that's what it should be.
>
> > I could simulate (e.g.) always in this workspace by listening to a
> > workspace changed event and moving the relevant window, but this would
> > not be a "true" implementation in that the window manager still thinks
> > that window.is_on_all_workspaces is false (as I don't seem to be able
> > to set it).
> >
> > So, does anyone know:
> > - an alternate way to set these window properties (properly, as in the
> > window manager knows about it) in a gnome shell extension?
>
> There might be some X window properties you can set (but I doubt it,
> and you probably can't do it from JS)
>
> > - how to tell whether a likely function in a c file (e.g.
> > meta_window_set_above) has been exported to the JS interface?
>
> Check out /usr/share/gir-1.0/Meta-1.0.gir
>
> > - how to expose a method from the C interface to the JS interface?
>
> You have to submit a patch to the C code, and wait a release cycle.
> Unfortunate, I know.
>
> > cheers!
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