Re: _NET_DESKTOP_LAYOUT question

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 04:21:35AM -0400, Etan Reisner wrote:
> I recently switched window managers and my current wm doesn't support its
> multiple desktops in a configuration other than 1xX (as if they were in a
> horizontal line).
> I've recently undertaken the project of writing a netwm compliant pager for
> my wm, and in that process I came across _NET_DESKTOP_LAYOUT.
> This property is very clearly labeled not for setting by a wm, only for
> setting by pagers. I was wondering what the rationale behind this was, and if
> it might not make more sense to allow the wm to set this property also. That
> way I could run my wm with a certain configuration of desktops without a
> pager, and if I then ever ran a pager it would pick up the correct layout. I
> could also then use the pager to set/change the layout and the wm would update
> it's configuration.
> 

The reason is that the pager is the only thing displaying a visual
relationship between workspaces; the WM doesn't inherently have such a
thing.

If you look at libwnck and metacity code they show how this is
supposed to work out.

It could certainly be done differently, but I think the spec has to
decide on one way to do it, even if it's partially arbitrary.

Note that your "pager" could probably be in the same process as your
WM, I don't think that violates the spec. Just be sure the WM takes
the manager selection for the layout, though.

Havoc