Re: _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_MENU

[Owen Taylor <otaylor redhat com>]

Cristian Tibirna <tibirna kde org> writes:

> On Thursday, 02 May 2002 17:39, Owen Taylor wrote:
> > Sawfish and Metacity decorate windows with the _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_MENU
> > hint.
> >
> > kwin doesn't.
> 
> KWin treats them identic to dock windows (WRT decorations).
> 
> > Right now, I have a problem since GTK+-2.0 sets this hint on tearoff
> > menus, which makes the tearoff menus unusuable under KDE.
> >
> > My opinion is that the decorations are correct since:
> >
> >  - Tearoff menus should have some sort of menu bar for moving around
> 
> Menubar? You mean titlebar?

Yes, sorry, I need to proofread my mails better.

> >  - If this menu bar is to be consistent with with the window manager theme,
> >    then it needs to be drawn by the window manager.
> >
> >    (GTK+-2.0 also allows it's tearoff menus to be resized vertically and
> >    get a scrollbar.)
> >
> > Opinions? Is KDE using this hint for anything currently?
 
> It is honoring it, but I don't think it is using it. In KDE, the
> tearoff menus are used as offered by Qt, which transforms them in
> normal windows when tearing them off, thus they automatically get
> decorated properly.

It sounds from Lubos Lunak's mail that it is being used
for the "mac style menu bar", which is presumably why
it is being treated like a dock.

The spec says

 "_NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_TOOLBAR and _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_MENU indicate
  toolbar and pinnable menu windows, respectively"

Since I think both the usage and the handling are in the core parts of
KDE, perhaps it might not be a problem to just fix KDE in a
future to correspond to the spec?
 
> I don't have enough experience to realize if decorating TYPE_MENU windows 
> would wreak havoc anywhere. I fact, I now wonder what is the purpose of the 
> TYPE_MENU spec in the NET protocol (i.e., what were the reasons for which it 
> was specified). And I also wonder: is a menu gets decorated, what 
> differentiates it from a normal window? Why does it need/require the 
> TYPE_MENU hint on it?

I think the idea is that they might have smaller or otherwise
different decorations; there might be other ways they should
be treated differently as well.

As somewhat non-relevant example of the need for such diferent
treatment, the attached image in:

 http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=79036

shows Microsoft Windows enforcing a minimum width on a GTK+ tearoff to
bad effect. (There are several "what window manager" questions from me
in the bug report before the OS sank in.)

Regards,
                                        Owen