Re: Removing wm/pager interaction

["Michael Rogers" <mrogers cs ucl ac uk>]

> |Are there any programs other than the Gnome pager, tasklist and desk
> |guide  which use these hints?
> 
> I have no idea, does the KDE panel support desktop switching or
> anything like that?

I think the KDE pager is part of KWM. (Matthias?)

> |If we're going to have a standard, it has to be one that makes sense. The 
> |current draft standard (1.9e) has some serious problems when it comes to 
> |creating, deleting and naming desktops.
> 
> This has nothing to do with the core pager hints. If this is the only
> problem, then why not just delete the provisions for creating and
> deleting desktops? (What's the problem with naming desktops?)

Sasha Vasko (AfterStep developer) said this in a previous thread:

SV> I'd like to establish two common sense things before proceeding any 
SV> further:
SV> 1) Any spec should be kept to a minumum, and be as unrestrictive as it is 
SV> only possible in order to accomplish desired goal.
SV> 2) Support for virtual desktops does no require support for naming of 
SV> those desktops.
SV> Naming is a good addition to virtual desktop support, but virtual desktops 
SV> can be implemented without it.
[...]
SV> And it can be implemented on Pager's level, without demanding 
SV> WindowManagers to add user options and code to do that. If WindowManager 
SV> provides this service - then fine, if it does not - then Pager should take 
SV> care about it.

> |That might be a fair compromise for those users who  are aware of the
> |fact that their window manager and their pager are two  separate
> |programs which share a limited amount of information, but I imagine 
> |inconsistencies like this would frustrate most users, who don't need
> |or want  to know how their desktop environment works.
> 
> There has to be a compromise somewhere, otherwise we'll end up with a
> separate pager for each (wm, desktop) combination. 

No, just a separate pager for each wm. I see no reason to use a different 
pager under Gnome than under KDE, if the pager is provided by the wm. We just 
need a simple protocol to allow the panel to recognise and embed a wm-provided 
pager.
 
> So is it necessary to flush _NET_SUPPORTED_HINTS and make complete
> compliance mandatory?

I hope not, but if we are going to have degrees of compliance we need to 
inform users and (particularly) documentation writers of the fact that window 
managers may conform to the spec, and thus be "Gnome+KDE compatible", but 
still not cooperate with standalone pagers. That's not going to look good.


Michael