Re: [Usability] window manager configuration

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Jamie Zawinski <jwz jwz org> writes:  
> But, stepping back to the WM protocol issue -- let's say I'm writing a
> program in who-knows-what toolkit, and I have the need to take over the
> screen all the way to the edge of the glass.
>
> What incentive do I have to use your new WM protocols to do this,
> instead of just using override-redirect?  What benefits do I derive?
> Because I don't see any benefits, only potential instability.
> 

Well sure, there have to be benefits, or no one will care. Spec
changes should typically be motivated by some concrete plan to take
advantage of it in the window manager UI. And override redirect always
remains as the "bail out" solution.

The nice thing is that by changing GTK and Qt and a couple window
managers, we can often improve things in small ways for lots of apps
and users at once. Small enhancements add up.

Havoc