Re: [Usability] desktop/workspaces terminology issue

[Michael Rogers <mrogers mth kcl ac uk>]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 09:51:44PM -0400, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> The distinction between a viewport and a desktop barely
> makes sense to me, and I've written a window manager.

As I understand it, the viewport is the area of the active workspace that's 
currently visible. The window manager might allow you to 'slide' the 
viewport around the workspace, or it might divide the workspace into 
discrete 'pages'. In either case, viewports are distinct from workspaces 
because window co-ordinates are relative to the workspace, not the 
viewport (unless the window sets _NET_WM_STATE_STICKY).

_____________________________________    _____________________________________ 
|           WORKSPACE               |    |           WORKSPACE               |
|        __________________________ |    |  __________________________       |
|        |        VIEWPORT        | |    |  |        VIEWPORT        |       |
|   _____|_______________         | |    |  |____________________    |       |
|   |    | WINDOW       |         | |    |  ||      WINDOW      |    |       |
|   |    |              |         | |    |  ||                  |    |       |
|   |    |              |         | | -> |  ||                  |    |       |
|   |    |              |         | |    |  ||                  |    |       |
|   |____|______________|         | |    |  ||__________________|    |       |
|        |                        | |    |  |                        |       |
|        |________________________| |    |  |________________________|       |
|        |___STICKY_PANEL_WINDOW__| |    |  |___STICKY_PANEL_WINDOW__|       |
|___________________________________|    |___________________________________|


Michael