Re: Work in Progress: draft 1.9a

[Dominik Vogt <dominik vogt fvwm org>]

On Tue, Jul 06, 1999 at 07:57:57PM +0200, ettrich@troll.no wrote:
> On Tue, 06 Jul 1999, Dominik Vogt wrote:
> > Well, if there are reasons for having such hints, simply speak them
> > aloud. I don't know how many of us have participated in these
> > 'fundamental discussions' you mention, but please don't put everyone
> > in the same bucket.
> 
> Why is an application allowed to iconify itself according to ICCCM? Ctrl-z in
> emacs shouldn't be there? Instead, people should use the WM's function.

Good point. Don't forget that iconify/deiconify does not cause the
application to consume more space than before at the cost of other
applications. Clearly an example of a 'user specified' request.
But why is emacs the only application to benefit from this? Why
doesn't *every* application iconify when ctrl-z is pressed?
This flexibility can only be reached if the WM handles the key
binding.

> Why can an application request reconfiguration (moving/resizing) according to
> ICCCM? Sizegrips provided by the application shouldn't be possible?

No, I don't think Sizegrips should be possible, at least not in a way that the
application informs the WM what it has done. Why the heck should the
application be allowed to override the WM's window arrangement policy?
If the WM's policy does not do what the user likes he can switch to a
WM that does. An application that *requires* the WM to do what it wants
is badly broken.

> Of course we could do the X thing and double all the hints by introducing a
> "program specified" version and a "user defined" version.

> What will happen
> then is, that all toolkits simply use the "user defined" variant because it's
> more likely to be obeyed by the WM.

Why do you believe that? Show me one application that claims that the
requested position was chosen by the user although that is not true.
Of course every application and every toolkit could ignore the ICCCM
at the moment. Most of them still try to accept it. Why should it be
any different with new 'user specified' hints?

X does not need applications that get into a huff if the WM knows
better where to put them, or if icons/shades are more appropriate etc.
If the user doesn't like window shades and disabled them in his WM,
why should the application be allowed to override that choice ('do
what I want or I will crash'). So why encourage application programmers
to write such programs?

> I apologize if I offended you, surely I didn't intend to put you into any
> bucket.

No, you didn't offend me. Becoming angry is just no good basis
for a discussion (yes, I know, I'm the right one to say that).
Keep cool, man 8-) (mooo)

Bye

Dominik ^_^

-- 
Dominik Vogt, Hewlett-Packard GmbH, Dept. BVS
Herrenberger Str.130, 71034 Boeblingen, Germany
phone: 07031/14-4596, fax: 07031/14-3883, dominik_vogt@hp.com