Re: _NET_WM_[GET_|TAKE_|REQUEST_]FOCUS & urgency

[Luke Schierer <lschiere users sf net>]

On Wed, May 25, 2005 at 02:11:11PM -0700, Rob Adams wrote:
> 
> > perhaps none.  Still, it is interesting to note that for quite some
> > time, only metacity and windows users complain about gaim's creation
> > of new windows. 
> 
> Metacity and windows users are your only users, to a first
> approximation.

Is that meant to be a serious comment?  It boggles the mind.  We have
kde users, fvwm2 users, xfce users, windowmaker users, blackbox
users, so on.  We also have users from various versions of Solaris
and macosx, along with other less common operating systems.

> 
> > gaim currently supports urgency from the ICCCM spec.  you all choose
> > not to implement that for some inexplicable reason (it *seems* to
> > boil down to one or two developers reading that spec in a way no one
> > who has implemented it reads it).  But I address this in my bulleted
> > points.  Did you read them?
> 
> I read them; They are mostly misinformed, and seem to demonstrate a lack
> of understanding of the specification.

Really.  How are they misinformed?  

> 
> Urgency is a separate matter, and there's really nothing preventing it
> being implemented other than a sane idea of what it should do.

We really do not see it as separate.  We see your demands attention
stuff as a reinvention of it, with the exception that demands
attention can be set by the window manager, and urgency should not.
Please explain how you see them as different.

fvwm2 naturally lets you redefine what happens on an urgent window to
do whatever you want.  most window managers that implement it cause
the window to flash.  Those with the button bar showing the open
windows cause it to flash there as well.  If Gnome/metacity were to
implement this, it would rock.

> 
> We would like a better way of notifying users about things like this.
> Currently the best thing we have is the notification area, so, like I
> said, perhaps we should have a notification area icon that watches for
> these things.

*nods* that is one solution.  It would work.  It is less than ideal
to have that be the sole way to handle such notification.

> 
> > I *know* from interacting with warren that this will result in many
> > many bug reports about loosing windows, not seeing password prompts,
> > new messages, so on.  I am perfectly willing to continue my age old
> > policy of saying "metacity is broken."  I've been saying that for
> > pretty much all of metacity's existence, it wouldn't hurt me or gaim
> > to continue doing so.  I thought that it would be appropriate though,
> > since you all *have* looked at this issue, to let you know that your
> > solution is less than optimal, and really won't change our responce
> > to this sort of bug.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "metacity is broken".  But you
> obviously have gotten it into your head that we're out to get you.

hardly.  I *have* gotten it into my head that it must take quite a
bit to get your attention, as metacity defaulted to focusing new
windows in a way that most linux window managers do not for far too
long.

> 
> > again, demonstratably false.  For example, see redhat bugs 157270 and
> > 157271.  These bugs are going to stay around for quite some time if
> > gaim "need not do anything." And others will be marked duplicate of
> > them.  I predict there will be quite a few marked duplicate, do you
> > disagree?
> 
> This statement demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what
> DEMANDS_ATTENTION is.  DEMANDS_ATTENTION is a hint set by the window
> manager when it has declined to focus a newly mapped window.  It's unset
> by the window manager when that window received focus.  That's it.
> There is 100% no reason why gaim or any other application will need to
> do anything remotely related to it.
> 
> What you seem to be worried about is that there's not enough in the
> GNOME desktop to alert the user to the presence of windows with
> DEMANDS_ATTENTION set.  I implemented the current solution (the bold
> text) was implemented as a stopgap measure.  What I originally wanted to
> do was blinking the tasklist entry but it turns out to be impossible to
> do that in gtk+ in a way that works with all themes.  We would very much
> welcome your input on ways to improve this support in the tasklist, or
> possibly using a notification area icon or something similar.
> 
> Also, no one has "refused" to imple

It appears something (not me) caused your reply to get cut off at
this point.  My statements on the lack of urgency support in
gnome/metacity (I really cannot accurately determine where you all
would choose to implement what, I do not use gnome at all) were based
on seeing pasted snippets of various gnome bug reports.  It has come
up, there is a patch for it, it has not happened.

luke