Re: [Usability] window manager configuration

[George <jirka 5z com>]

On Fri, Dec 07, 2001 at 01:23:09AM -0500, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> Options I hate a lot but people probably want:
> 
>   Maximize covers panel or not
>   Panel is on top vs. below vs. raise-on-mouseover/focus

OK, I think the wm-spec might sort of suck here.  There are really two types
of panel with different desired behaviour.  There is the standard panel, and
the autohide panel and panels that aren't on the edge.   The covering is
handled by WM_STRUT so that's fine.  But what about the layer.  Autohidden
panels MUST be always on top else it just doesn't work.  I was thinking of
this:

Use DOCK hint only for autohiden panels that are on the side or for the
foobar, and use the TOOLBAR hint for all other panels.  Is this on crack?
In any case.  We either do that or we always keep panels on top.  Note that
always keeping all panels on top is crack I think, but may be acceptable.  In
any case, DOCK hint doesn't do justice to panels.  I suppose if the
windowmanager actually does things nicely, then always on top might not be
that bad.  Unfortunatly I have not seen any wm to get it right.  Like for
example sometimes placing window titles under the foobar or some such.

We can do the raise-on-mouseover on the panel ourselves in the panel and not
bother then windowmanager I don't think.  Focus might be more fun, I think we
don't want focus unless we click even in sloppy focus.  This is because it's
not common to have panel focus and most of the time you don't want your other
window to lose focus.  This may be complete crack.

In any case I don't think it makes sense to make this configurable.  In 1.4
we have a gazillion options in the panel for levels and maximize cover stuff,
and it's just a mess.  I think we should pick one behaviour (it must be one
which doesn't lead to annoying behaviour:) and stick with it.

George

-- 
George <jirka 5z com>
   Who killed bambi?   -- Sex Pistols