Re: Window groups and multiple desktops

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

jg pa dec com (Jim Gettys) writes:
> I believe this is the correct meaning of window group.
> 
> Generally, if I minimize the main window of an application,
> I'd like any open dialog boxes to be minimized at the same time,
> at least for most applications.
> 
> Or that was my thoughts on the topic before the ICCCM existed
> (and I threw together the first set of window properties for window
> managers to use).

What do people think we should do for apps with multiple documents?

I can see saying:
 a) each document is in its own group, with dialogs that 
    are related to that document
or
 b) the whole app including all documents are in one group

The problems with a) I can think of:
 - you can't label the application menu "applications," 
   it's actually the "main windows" menu
 - apps like the Gimp have toolboxes/dialogs that apply 
   to all document windows; so what group do those go in?
 - app authors are more likely to screw it up

With b), the issue is that you can't minimize just one document.
Might be inconvenient.

I think b) is right; it will make more sense to users.

Of course a WM or tasklist/menu that works in terms of applications
instead of windows will be broken for some apps; e.g. gnome-terminal
has all the terminal windows in the same group. I think this should be
considered a bug in gnome-terminal (or rather a bug in GTK which
doesn't support multiple groups in a single process).

Havoc