Re: Sv: Window Manager configuration utilities

[Nathan Clemons <nathan windsofstorm net>]

On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Paul Warren wrote:

> On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Michael ROGERS wrote:
> 
> > Creating a config tool aimed at those users who want everything to be 
> > consistent and intuitive and then risking incompatibility between the program 
> > and the config tool seems like a bad idea. Maybe Rasterman and Mandrake would 
> > be interested in making a separate "E for Gnome" distribution? (E capplet 
> > instead of e-conf, themes without desktop buttons, gmc-friendly mouse 
> > bindings, etc)
> 
> I understand that insisting that wm's have config tools in capplet form,
> places a load on the WM authors, but surely our aim has to be to provide
> the best Desktop Environment that we can?  And, to me, this includes
> integrated config tools.  Perhaps this should be a second level of Gnome
> compliance, but it should definitely be defined.  It is my hope that there
> will soon be window managers written specifically to work with Gnome.  As
> has been pointed out many times before wm's like E and Window Maker are
> not ideal as Gnome WM's because they try to do too much (see Docks,
> Pagers, desktop icons, standalone config tools etc).
> 
> What I am suggesting is that we shouldn't sacrifice the aim of a really
> good, integrated desktop by going out of our way to allow support for wm's
> that were written to be standalone window managers.  Gnome already has
> many apps written specifically to work with Gnome, why should something as
> crucial as window managers not be written specifically for the job?  If
> that means a seperate distribution of E just for Gnome, then so be it.  
> 

It's a nice thing to think that GNOME will have dedicated window
managers. In my opinion, you know, that's great. But the idea that a WM
should need to have to have a second distribution means to me that we are
failing in our attempt here. What we need to do is to define something
that will allow the WMs to support a protocol, as it were, or
specification, that they do not have to change often. Nor should anyone on
the GNOME team be updating something anytime the WM version bumps up as
well! For WMs that want tight integration with some applications that the
UI supports (like a WM that will work well with the whole drag and throw
idea recently on gnome-devel) that's fine, but do not assume that everyone
is really interested in going that far.

Both the UI and the WM will change, and usually change on a regular basis
and at different development tracks. The two should be truly
interoperable, and not need a cross-modification. If they do, we failed
here.

> I am currently working on Mosquito, which is intended to be a Gnome window
> manager written specifically for the job.  I suspect that when it, and
> others like it, are ready, they will very quickly become the window
> managers of choice over standalone managers.  
> 
> yours,
> 
> Paul
> 

I don't intend on abandoning my favorite window manager, and I bet others
feel the same. I'm comfortable with blackbox, and that's what I'm planning
on staying with, until Brad modifies it in such a way that it does not do
something I want it to do and I can't patch it to still do it.


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Nathan P. Clemons                       "Peace favor your code."
nathan@windsofstorm.net                 ICQ: 2810688
IN CONSTRUCTION:                        http://gnome.windsofstorm.net
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