Re: GTK+ and Gimp

[Paul Davis <paul linuxaudiosystems com>]

On Sun, 2009-01-25 at 22:00 +0200, Tor Lillqvist wrote:
> > i'm just guessing, but it may be related to X11's rather limited
> concept
> > of window relationships, 
> 
> Limited, indeed, but even more limited than you perhaps guess;) The
> X11 protocol doesn't have any concept of relationship between
> top-level windows. A core principle of X11 is to provide mechanism,
> not policy. The concept of window relationships and "classes" of
> windows or "window type hints", like "utility window", is specified
> more or less standardized conventions ("Inter-Client Communications
> Conventions Manual" and "Extendid Windows Manager Hints" on top of the
> base windowing system.

when i refer to X11 in the context of GTK, i am generally referring to
the entire X11 ecosystem, not just the X11 API and/or server.

i like the earlier comment from michael about OS X using an app-centric
approach to window management instead of a window-centric one. it
doesn't matter if X11 *could* support such a policy - i don't know of
any practical way that a user could get similar behaviour. just the idea
of presentation layers alone in OS X is pretty hard to simulate in an
X11 environment, let alone the way it differentiates between main
window, key focus window and active application.