Re: Sv: Window manager configuration utilities

[Michael Rogers <m rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

> I would like to see pluggable desktop shell components, so we still have
> choice and room for innovation. For example choice between Gnome/K task
> list, icewm-style, WindowMaker-style. Also choice between window managers.
> Users should be able to choose regardless of their desktop environment. WM
> projects would instead become "desktop shell" projects; they might ship an
> integrated set of desktop shell elements, but users would not have to use
> the exact shipping set. Alternatively, some WMs might decide to be window
> managers only, in the strict sense.
> 
> The spec should require enough features to make a nice, integrated
> environment while retaining code modularity. That includes setting the
> background, either pluggable pagers or a way to embed pagers in the
> k/gnome-panels, some standard way to configure common window manager
> features, etc. 

My only reservation about breaking the window manager up into modules is
that we need clean and extensible interfaces between those modules - the
current spec makes wm/pager interaction /work/, but it's pretty ugly. On
the other hand, a lot of people have expressed reservations about
using CORBA. Personally I'd like to see a whole set of CORBA interfaces,
eg to allow a pager to change the current work area, a window manager to
call up the Gnome menu, and a web browser to set the background, leaving
the programmers with the choice of implementing them or not. I don't think
hints are the right solution for this kind of communication.


Michael Rogers