Re: _NET: Disabling shading

[Dominik Vogt <dominik vogt gmx de>]

On Wed, Oct 01, 2003 at 06:23:38PM +0400, Denis O. Mikhalkin wrote:
> On Wed, 2003-10-01 at 18:16, Matthias Clasen wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > This is the big misunderstanding. It's the users desktop and they should
> > > be
> > > > in control of the windows appearing on it, with the help of a wm which
> > > they've
> > > > selected for its interpretation of the specs.  
> > > I don't agree with that. I don't think user want to do what you say -
> > > users usually want PREDICTABILITY.
> > 
> > What you propose only adds predictability for the developer how exactly 
> > "his" windows will behave.  Which might in fact be of some value if he needs
> > 
> > to specify how exactly to do window management tasks on "his" windows.
> > But why the hell should he, instead of just referring to the wm manual ? 
> Huh, wm manual? Is there any? But there are numerous software manuals,
> and numerous software products, and if some window of the program
> behaves specially the author can mention this in the manual since anyway
> they describe how to operate with different windows.
> 
> > It is far better to ensure desktop-wide uniformity and learnability by
> > letting the wm set the policy how windows of certain types are managed.
> This uniformity is achieved by restriction which people don't accept.
> Instead of using WMs they: 
> - switch to another WM, since it provides the features they wanted
> - write hacks
> Is that what you want? I don't think it is hard to even go half-way - to
> provide features and to have one value called "WM-specific".

> But I doubt anyone will use it

If there is no interest in different policies, then how do you
explain the existence of more than 100 X window managers?

> developers want predictability.

And yet they refuse to adhere to the standards that are already
there.  You should note that (especially commercial) applications
violate or ignore the rules far more often than window managers.
And, by the way, it is foolish of a deveoper to think she knows
best how the desktop must behave.  This "shading" discussion is
the perfect example.  Users love predictability, and they
absolutely *hate* if every window behaves in a different way.  The
fvwm mailing list is already full of mails a la "why can't I
iconify/resize/maximise/... this specific window?"  So what would
a "disallow shading" hint add to predictability?  What's important
for an application may be completely irrelevant for the app's
user.  The developer can not decide that.


Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^