Re: OFFLIST: Re: extended WM_TRANSIENT_FOR (was Re: _NET: Disabling shading)

[Lubos Lunak <l lunak suse cz>]

On Monday 13 of October 2003 22:39, Gregory Merchan wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm replying off-list because this reply doesn't directly deal with WM
> issues.

 IMHO it's related enough.

>
> On Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 04:53:04PM +0200, Lubos Lunak wrote:
> <snip>
>
> >  No, that wouldn't work. You overlooked the part where I said that I want
> > the dialog to be transient for two different processes that are otherwise
> > completely unrelated. I think it will be more obvious with a different
> > example:
> >  KDE-3.2 will have something called KWallet, which if turned on will
> > store all user's passwords etc., protected by one master password. So if
> > I'll want to login in some WWW site, or read my mail, I'll get a dialog
> > asking for the master password on the first access to KWallet. But if I
> > do these two things at the same time (say, session restored KMail that
> > automatically checks mail and Konqueror that was logged in somewhere when
> > the session was saved), I'll get a dialog for two completely unrelated
> > windows. I cannot set the dialog's WM_CLASS to be KMail's or Konqueror's,
> > because I'd have to pick up only one of them. The same way, KMail's and
> > Konqueror's window shouldn't be in the same window group. And I still
> > will want to make that dialog transient for them both, otherwise I'd have
> > a seemingly stuck window, because it would be waiting for a dialog that's
> > unrelated to it.
>
> What concerns me is that, while extending WM_TRANSIENT_FOR would allow the
> windows to be related as the window manager sees them, they might not be
> related as the user sees them. I think that a window modal for two or more
> otherwise unrelated windows, but not all windows, would be confusing.

 Confusing? Well, perhaps a bit unusual. But this is so far the best idea I 
have.

>
> Since KWallet is a system service, it seems like one of those rare things
> that should use a system modal dialog. Without a system modal dialog, the
> user could start more applications that would need to be blocked. Worst
> case scenario: the user will try to get around the dialog by launching
> the app a second, third, fourth, etc. time and he'll just conclude that
> the system is broken.

 I don't think that blocking all windows instead of only two of them makes it 
better. What if the user is following some HOWTO, and need to check another 
step, or simply needs to check something in another app? The dialog will 
usually be shown only for one application, I'd just like to handle somehow 
the rare case where it will be shown for more of them.

 I don't actually quite understand your reasoning. If the user starts KMail/
Konqueror/whatever and get the KWallet dialog, why should they try to start 
it again? Everytime they'll try to work with the application, they'll get the 
dialog activated instead, so they'll see that's where they have to do 
something. I don't see how that should be broken.

 And I also think some people here will jump after seeing "system modal 
dialog"  ;).

-- 
Lubos Lunak
KDE developer
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