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

[Giovanni Campagna <scampa giovanni gmail com>]

Il 26 aprile 2012 16:53, Jasper St. Pierre <jstpierre mecheye net> ha scritto:
> On Thu, Apr 26, 2012 at 6:55 AM, Amy Chan <mathematical coffee gmail com> wrote:
>> 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?
>
> const Wnck = imports.gi.Wnck;
> Wnck.Screen.get_default().get_active_window().make_above();
>
> I wonder if we should use more wnck. mutter already depends upon it.

Mutter depends on libwnck? That's strange.
Anyway, using libwnck means going to X, changing some property there,
waiting for an XEvent, and then invoking the appropriate meta_*
function, incurring on a lot of overhead. The advantage of being in
the same process as the WM means we can avoid all that.

Giovanni

>> 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!
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> gnome-shell-list mailing list
>>>> gnome-shell-list gnome org
>>>> http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-shell-list
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>
>
>
> --
>   Jasper
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