Re: comments on current spec

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

On Wed, 26 Apr 2000, John Harper wrote:

> I was stuck at home this morning, so I thought I'd take a first pass at
> implementing the current state of the spec, for sawmill (or whatever
> it's called these days)

Excellent because:

> I found a number of things that only became apparent to me once I'd
> started implementing it, so I thought I'd share them. 

Yes, I figured this might happen...

> _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW
> 
> 	repeated sentence in description

Oops.

> 	doesn't specify what to set it to if _no_ window is focused
> 
> 	should the client message also select the desktop/viewport the
> 	window is a member of?

Do you mean so that a pager can change the desktop of a window?  This
would duplicate the _NET_WM_DESKTOP client message.  The current version
no longer includes the "degrees of activation" which I think allowed
control of when windows should be activated on other desktops because
nobody on this list could offer a full explanation of it.  If you want to
see what was in the spec, take a look at
http://ferret.lmh.ox.ac.uk/~pdw/wm-spec

> _NET_CLOSE_WINDOW / _NET_WM_MOVERESIZE
> 
> 	why the inconsistent names?
> 
> 	I suggest _NET_WM_CLOSE_WINDOW / _NET_WM_MOVE_RESIZE, or
> 	_NET_CLOSE_WINDOW, _NET_MOVE_RESIZE (see later)

OK.  I wondered about removing the WM too, but just carried on the
tradition of previous drafts.

> 	also, why not have separate messages for move and resize, there
> 	seems to be nothing gained from combining them?

OK.

> 	also, if allowing resize grab position to be specified why not
> 	add the possibility to restrict the movement to a single
> 	dimension?

I think that this should be left to the WM eg. some WMs might restrict
movement of a SIZE_RIGHT resize to one dimensions, others might allow
vertical resizing if you drag outside the (extended) boundaries of the
window.

This should probably be clarified in the spec.

> _NET_{INSERT,DELETE}_DESKTOP, _NET_DESKTOP_VIEWPORT
> 
> 	format of these client messages is never specified, I assumed:

[...]

> same for _NET_DESKTOP_GEOMETRY

[...]

Yep, sounds reasonable.

> _NET_PROPERTIES
> 
> 	do we really need it, is there enough measurable benefit to
> 	warrant this thing?

I have no idea - quite possibly not.  

> _NET_WM_DESKTOP
> 
> 	the 0xfffffff thing means to me `put it on desktop 2^32-1', not
> 	`put it on all desktops'. Why not just add another STICKY-like
> 	state instead?

Yes.  I would recommend _NET_[WM_]_STATE_STICKY_DESKTOP, and change the
existing STICKY to STICKY_VIEWPORT.

> _NET_WM_STATE client message
> 
> 	allows two actions specifically to allow simultaneous
> 	vert/horiz maximization; why not just define a `pseudo state'
> 	_NET_WM_STATE_MAXIMIZED that signifies this?

This would indeed be more elegant.

> if anyone's interested, my implementation is at:
> 
> 	http://www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/~john/wm-spec.jl
> 
> though it's only about 80% complete and totally untested,

It would be good if this, and any other implementations by members of this
list, could be linked to from the spec.

Paul