Re: GTK+, WM, desktops and CSD

[Matthias Clasen <matthias clasen gmail com>]

On Thu, Mar 5, 2015 at 3:23 PM, Olivier Fourdan <fourdan gmail com> wrote:

Hi,

I have little desire to discuss the pros and cons of csd and whether
something essential (consistency ?!) was lost when we started using
them, but a few points are worth replying to.

> The use of Motif MWM hints for this is a anachronism IMHO, but that's
> another story.

I agree somewhat. We used them because we thought that they would be
almost universally supported. That turned out to be farther from the
truth than expected. But consider the alternative: If we had started
by suggesting a new cross-desktop spec for CSD, we would still be
arguing about protocols for proxying button clicks back and forth
today...

> Ideally, GTK should be able to use CSD even without a compositor. The
> only reason it requires a compositor is because it uses the shadows as
> resize handles. Ideally, it should use a larger border width when
> there is no compositor - But that would another set of patches as not
> directly related to the hint proposed.

Yes, I've been thinking that myself recently: We should fall back to
having 'fat borders' instead of 'invisible borders+shadow' if the
environment can't support them. A patch to do so would be most welcome
(I'm well aware that gtkwindow.c is not the easiest place to add new
functionality like this...)