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

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On 5/26/05, Sean Egan <seanegan gmail com> wrote:
> Hi, I'm another Gaim hacker. I'm one of the few that actually uses
> GNOME and Metacity, so maybe I can provide a bit more personal insight
> than Luke who is largely summarizing the opinions of Gaim developers
> as a whole.

Hi, this email was indeed helpful--but it was misplaced (wm-spec-list
should be thought of as a freedesktop.org list, not a
metacity-specific one).  Any chance you could file a bug in bugzilla
about this against metacity, including the first two paragraphs below
or a link to your email?  (It made me also thinking of the related
case of an Urgent/DEMANDS_ATTENTION window that doesn't happen to be
on the same workspace as the user is on, which the tasklist blinking
can't help with unless we manually move the window to the right
workspace--I don't think we do that)

> Let me share how I use GNOME and how the new Metacity behavior is
> totally busted for me:
> - I prefer the workspace idiom to the taskbar idiom. The two are
> essentially redundant, so I don't keep a task list on my panel. I
> don't have minimize buttons on my titlebars. Instead, I keep a
> workspace switcher with twelve workspaces stretching across my screen.
> - I keep a maximize button, becuase I like to surf the web maximized.
> Naturally, this goes in its own workspace (more often two or three
> workspaces). Everything else stays at its normal size.
> - I use Gaim's tabbed conversation windows. I normally get at least
> one message as soon as I start Gaim, so I can keep that window in its
> own workspace and not worry about losing track of it.
> 
> However, when surfing the web, new alerts (most frequently "ThisPerson
> has added you to his buddy list...") are received and now appear
> beneath my web browser window. Bold window titles, flashing taskbar
> buttons, none of those do anything for me because I don't have a
> tasklist. I typically won't see them until after closing my browser
> window. Because my browser sessions usually outlive my Gaim sessions,
> I often never receive these messages.

<snip>

Cheers,
Elijah