Re: _NET_WM_ALLOWED_ACTIONS

[Jim Gettys <jg laptop org>]

To give some historical perspective (and current, but not on desktops
most people on this list care about, but are in fact important in the
market), many of the hints enable specialized behavior in specialized
circumstances where you may be running a custom(ized) window manager.

Think about process control environments (e.g. mission control at NASA,
or a nuclear reactor); the hints enable policies like: "This application
will *always* be available and not an icon".  This may be a fundamental
safety issue.

Just because a conventional Gnome or KDE desktop doesn't need a hint
doesn't mean it isn't absolutely vital in other environments.

Bottom line: think beyond the conventional desktop use of X....
                            Regards,
                                      - Jim


On Mon, 2006-11-20 at 17:55 +0100, Lubos Lunak wrote:
> On Monday 20 November 2006 15:01, Havoc Pennington wrote:
> > Oleg Sukhodolsky wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > Is there any _standard_ way to disable the Minimize (or Maximize, or
> > > Close, whatever) menuitem on the system menu (accessible via
> > > Alt-Spacebar or Alt-RightClick under Metacity)?
> > > I've read the _NET_WM_ALLOWED_ACTIONS spec, but it's not clear whether
> > > this is client- or WM- managed hint...
> >
> > It is WM-managed; to disable things like that I think you have to use
> > the old MWM hints.
> 
>  Assuming the WM gives a damn about those. Hints are just that, hints and the 
> WM is not required to obey them (or even implement them). For minimize, I 
> don't think there's any good way to prevent that and, quite frankly, I don't 
> see why anyway. That actually applies to most of it, what exactly is the 
> point of disabling just e.g. minimize or maximize? Switch virtual desktops 
> and it's "minimized" anyway, resize the window manually and it's "maximized" 
> just as well.
> 
>  For maximize, most WMs will decide to obey the maximum size and not offer 
> maximize for windows that are smaller then the workarea. For closing, your 
> app may ignore the WM_DELETE_WINDOW request, although that will not affect 
> the close button appearing. Also note that some WMs let you configure which 
> buttons are shown in the decorations.
> 
-- 
Jim Gettys
One Laptop Per Child