Re: Any more features? (fwd)

[Paul Warren <pdw ferret lmh ox ac uk>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1999 04:32:23 -0800 (PST)
From: Tim Janik <timj@wilber.gimp.org>
To: Paul Warren <pdw@ex-parrot.com>
Cc: Tim Janik <timj@gtk.org>
Subject: Re: Any more features?


On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Paul Warren wrote:

> On Tue, 30 Nov 1999, Tim Janik wrote:
> > On Mon, 29 Nov 1999, Paul Warren wrote:
> 
> > > Yep - thanks.  It hadn't occured to me that the desk-guide marked the
> > > active area on non-active desktops.
> > > 
> > > Hmmm.  Presumably the way to do this is to extend _NET_DESKTOP_VIEWPORT to
> > > be an array of (x,y) pairs, one for each desktop.  If only one pair is
> > > specified, it applies to all desktops.  If a list is supplied, the first
> > > is desktop 1, etc...
> > > 
> > > Would that cover it?  Let me know, and I'll put it to the list as a
> > > suggestion.
> > 
> > yes that would cover it. i'm not sure though we shouldn't simply say that
> > _NET_DESKTOP_VIEWPORT is always an array of _NET_NUMBER_OF_DESKTOPS length.
> 
> I was thinking about WMs that have the same viewport active across all
> desktops.  It's (slight) extra hassle for them to have to maintain a list
> of the correct length containing N copies of the same number, when a
> single number covers it unambiguously.

yes, i'd just prefer having the spec defining one format for a certain
property, rather than a list of possible formats.


two other things:

* what is the justification for letting
_NET_CURRENT_DESKTOP start out with 1 instead of 0 (like the old
spec defined it)?

* and reading through the spec, i noticed that we still don't mention a
property that should be set to indicate virtual root windows.
many window managers, such as enlightenment, create a new window as big
as the desktop and reparent application windows to that to implement
desktop switching. pagers however need to know about virtual root windows
to implement a reliable way to figure an application window's decoration
window (and to know where to watch out for substructure notifies).
enlightenment currently identifies virtual root windows through a
ENLIGHTENMENT_DESKTOP property. to standardize this, we should add a
_NET_VIRTUAL_ROOT (or _NET_VIRTUAL_DESKTOP) property to the spec that wms
have to set on windows that they use a virtual roots, if they introduce such
windows.

> 
> cheers,
> 
> Paul
> 
> 

---
ciaoTJ