Re: FVWM: FVWM 2.5.5 and GNOME/Nautilus 2 (RedHat 8.0)

[Olivier Chapuis <olivier chapuis free fr>]

On Wed, Jan 01, 2003 at 11:47:54PM -0500, Roland Roberts wrote:
> I'm trying to get GNOME to play nice with FVWM; it's mostly working,
> but....
> 
> Near as I can tell, Nautilus either controls the whole desktop or none
> at all.  That is, it will create desktop icons for me, but only if I
> also let it control the background (image, color, whatever) as well.
> If I don't want it to control the background, then it won't do the
> desktop icons either.
> 
> Has anyone else played with this combination of GNOME/Nautilus 2 and
> FVWM?  Do I have it right or is it possible to get Nautilus to leave
> my background alone while still creating desktop icons?
> 

No, I do not think so. It is not FVWM fault.

IMO, GNOME 2 and KDE >=2 (and in fact the EWMH spec.) take an
erroneous decision about what should be a window of desktop type:

  "This can include a single window containing desktop icons with the
  same dimensions as the screen, allowing the desktop environment to
  have full control of the desktop, without the need for proxying root
  window clicks."

  ...

  "This spec suggests implementing the file manager desktop by mapping
  a desktop-sized window (no shape) to all desktops, with
  _NET_WM_WINDOW_TYPE_DESKTOP.  This makes the desktop focusable and
  greatly simplifies implementation of the file manager.  It is also
  faster than managing lots of small shaped windows. The file manager
  draws the background on this window.  There should be a root
  property with a window handle for use in applications that want to
  draw the background (xearth)."

So what GNOME/Nautilus 2 do when you ask for icons desktop is to map
this desktop-sized window over the root window. IMO this is a dramatic
invention. GNOME 1/gmc solution was really better.

Note that you have the "D" context if you want bindings to some FVWM
actions over this desktop window. With

   Mouse 1 D M Menu MyFvwmMenuOverTheDesktop

Alt-Mouse 1 will give the MyFvwmMenuOverTheDesktop menu. Of course,
the problem here is that the desktop window has/needs some mouse
bindings so you should use appropriate modifiers. If not you override
these bindings with the FVWM one's. The last time I tried Nautilus the
Alt modifier was Ok (i.e., I do not think that Nautilus use Alt-Mouse1).

So, you should complaint at wm-spec-list gnome org ...
I do it for you: I cc this message to this list.

Regards, Olivier