Re: Spec Purpose and Definition

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

>> Which other programs would wish to maximise or activate windows?
>
>A big office-like application or IDE that offers a configuration option to
>start up just like it was closed may want to set the maximize hint.

Set a hint, yes. Maximise its own window, no. That breaks the "chain of
command" (user->window manager->application) and allows an application to
define its own window layout policy.

>Activation is usefull for all sorts of notification applications. I may for
>example have an postit like note application that may want to become active
>when the alarm rings (which requires: switch to the desktop, raise, focus,
>etc.). A simple "show plus raise" is not sufficient: the application may have
>other windows on another desktop, so the wm might "show" them on that hidden
>virtual desktop, which is pointless in that case.

I think if my computer started switching desktops on its own while I was
working, whenever an application thought it had something important to tell
me, I would get very irritated. However, I know that E provides this option
for popup windows. Can't imagine it being anything but annoying...
applications should find another way of getting your attention that doesn't
involve yanking you from one desktop to another in the middle of typing a 
sentence. The proposed Gnome user notification framework might be the "right
way" to do this, or perhaps we could define a "notification" hint that can
be set on a window. The WM could handle it by giving the window's image in
the pager a red border, or beeping, or switching desktops, or whatever. The
important thing is that the window manager decides how to handle it, not the
application.

>Don't resctrict application programmers too much. At least not if the necessary
>code in the wm is just the 3 lines necessary to catch the client message and
>call the appropriate function.

I'm not really worried about the three lines of code.  :)  I'm worried about 
the idea of an application deciding to override the window manager and choose 
its own stacking position, desktop, etc, and changing the active window or 
active desktop whenever it likes. This is just going to annoy the user.


Michael Rogers