Re: 1.9d

[Paul Warren <pdw ferret lmh ox ac uk>]

On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, Tim Janik wrote:
> On Sun, 12 Dec 1999, Paul Warren wrote:

[ snip: everything that I agreed with ] 

> >_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE
> >
> >_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE, ATOM[]/32
> >
> >   This MUST be set by the Client before mapping, to a list of atoms indicating the functional type of the window. This
> >   property SHOULD be used by the window manager in determining the decoration, stacking position and other behaviour of
> >   the window. The Client SHOULD specify window types in order of preference (the first being most preferable), but MUST
> >   include at least one of the basic window type atoms from the list below. This is to allow for extension of the list of
> >   types, whilst providing default behaviour for window managers that do not recognise the extensions.
> 
> using MUST here is absolutely inappropriate, 

Yeah.  This is something that bothered me when putting in the RFC terms -
in this spec there is nothing that either the client or WM "MUST" do
because they may choose to implement only part of the spec.  The RFC
language lends itself to documenting a single complex protocol with
many requirements which must all be fulfilled before an app can said to be
compliant.  Unfortunately, it lends itself less well to a spec with many
parts which a client/wm may or may not choose to implement.  What I was
trying to say was that "If the client wants to use the _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE
property then it MUST set it before mapping", but I agree, that's not what
I wrote in the spec :-)

cheers,

Paul