Re: Fwd: Draft 1

[Michael ROGERS <M Rogers cs ucl ac uk>]

>> I have reservations about using two applications (pager and window
>> manager) to do the same job. A large part of the current spec seems to
>> exist to help the Gnome pager communicate with window managers, many of
>> which provide pagers of their own, or alternative methods which work
>> just as well. Wouldn't it be easier to just abandon the Gnome pager, and
>> let the window manager manage the windows? Any window managers which
>> wanted to include a panel applet for switching tasks could do so. I
>> don't know what the situation is with KDE/XFCE, of course.
>> 
>> 
>> Michael Rogers
>> 
>
>Two immediate reasons that I can think of are a.) for window managers that
>do not have pagers. BlackBox for example has multiple workspaces but the
>method to shift from one to another is via a menu. The other reason, b.)
>is to provide a standard method of shifting irregardless of whichever
>window manager you are using.

To answer both points: if you want a pager, use a window manager that has a 
pager. If you don't want a pager, use a window manager that doesn't have a
pager. I don't see why the pager should be an external application (any more
than the root menu, the window borders or the close button). Shifting
between desktops and tasks is a fundamental part of window manager
functionality. Instead of writing the Gnome pager and then changing existing
WMs to work with it, perhaps the authors should have written a Gnome-specific 
WM with its own pager that appeared on the panel.


Michael Rogers