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

[Robert McQueen <robot101 debian org>]

Elijah Newren wrote:
> More precisely, metacity >= 2.9.13 no longer unconditionally follows
> stacking configure requests. (gdk_window_raise() calls XRaiseWindow,
> which results in the x server sending a stacking ConfigureRequest
> event to Metacity)

Sure, I'm just saying that from the users perspective, GNOME 2.10 breaks
that particular option for them. This kind of thing makes users cry at
us. :)

(sorry, I failed to introduce myself: I'm a Gaim "crazy patch writer",
the Debian maintainer for Gaim, and a GNOME user. I've written various
stuff into Gaim like the tray icon (I know I'm sorry, I know its evil,
it's on my todo list to fix), session management support, etc, to try
and help Gaim integration in both KDE and GNOME desktops. Hence I don't
necessarily represent Gaim upstream but sometimes we can agree on
stuff... :D)

> Not at all; I totally disagree with that sentiment.  My opinion is
> that GAIM is buggy for offering such an option (though this is almost
> certainly the fault of WMs & DEs that didn't support Urgency in the
> past when they should have *cough*).  The description of Urgency
> already explicitly lists raising the window as one possible thing that
> a WM can do.
>...<
> The latter makes for a nice, consistent environment.

Pretty much in agreement.

> If the user doesn't like
> how important apps are handled, they should complain to the WM/DE, NOT
> to the application authors (unless, of course, apps are abusing or
> neglecting or otherwise misusing the urgency or demands attention
> hints).

We've tried. When we encourage GNOME users to file bugs on their
WM/desktop environment/etc for being broken, they either think we're
trying to pass the buck for something that's actually our fault, or just
look at us strangely and walk off. I don't think they feel confident to
enter into discussions such as this one without knowing more about
X/etc. People who use other window managers are usually more technically
aware, and indeed Gaim users/developers have gone out and contacted or
patched other WMs to add support for stuff like window matching via role
hint (versus overloading window class), supporting URGENT and the fd.o
tray icon standard. :)

> I know that removing the GAIM option may not be desireable in the
> short term (too many users with buggy WMs/DEs (i.e. all currently
> deployed versions of Gnome)), but they could at least change the
> option to read "request that the window be raised" or something
> similar for now.

I'd be all in favour of removing it too, because I pretty much agree
that URGENT is the way forward now that the major reason for it being
consigned to an obscure "message notification plugin" has been removed
(COUGH COUGH). We can probably add in a "Draw attention <foo> windows on
events" option which sets URGENT on IM, chat or buddy list windows
depending on what the user wanted, and let the WM sort it out for us.
And now it's not utterly obnoxious, probably default it to on for at
least IMs. The message notification plugin could have the obscure hacky
raising code instead. :)

> ...and the fact that it may result in people patching GAIM to fix the
> bug that using _NET_ACTIVE_WINDOW would introduce, or patching
> Metacity and other WMs to try to detect such buggy apps and ignoring
> them.

I absolutely do not want to try and get into a battle with the window
manager about this, I just wanted to know what you thought we should do
with the option given that it doesn't work now. On behalf of users who
want their focus stolen (strange people) I await the outcome of optional
raise on new/urgent discussions with interest. :)

> Hope that helps,
> Elijah

Regards,
Rob