Re: GTK+ and Gimp

[jcupitt gmail com]

2009/1/24 Michael Grosberg <grosberg michael gmail com>:
> things worked out without needing a workaround. Oh, by the way -
> Microsoft actually do have a powertoy for WindowsXP giving you four
> virtual desktops - google "Virtual Desktop Manager xp".

Unfortuntaly it's awful and unuseable :( The problem (as I understand
it) is that on Windows, applications are responsible for drawing their
own window borders, handling minimise/unminimise, and that kind of
thing.

This makes it very hard for a program to quickly hide one set of
windows and bring up a new set, since every application on the old
desktop and the new desktop has to start up and act on an event before
the switch can complete. As a result, even the basic
switch-between-desktops action is slow and (depending on the apps
involved) unreliable. And many applications get confused and start
popping up windows on the wrong desktop, or simply don't work at all.

Their new display system has much better support for manipulating
windows without the app's knowledge or consent, so perhaps it would be
possible to write a proper virtual desktop now.

John