Philipp Lohmann - Sun Germany - ham02 - Hamburg wrote:
Sasha Vasko wrote:
2) Specialization - By not having to worry about window management
interface app developers can avoid certain (rather large at it) amount
of work, which they will never be able to do well anyway. ( For
example what good is minimize/shade button inside application if
window manager arranges windows in tiles or tabs ?).
That's the theory. The gruesome reality always looks differently, more
along the lines you suggested yourself for xmms: give a hint to the WM
to have an undecorated window, the WM does not honor the hint, xmms gets
a decorated window and then should in your opinion react by displaying a
different UI ?
Yeah. Well, no application can be guaranteed its hints being honored,
including its size and position. Not becouse I decided so, but becose
thats the way X works, weather we want it or no.
Therefore the proper way of for application to behave is to adjust its
contents to the ACTUALL size/position/decorations of the window.
Have to handle all the ConfigureNotifyes and PropertyNotifyes, no other
way around it.
If you really want to try yourself at window manager's interface
design - write a window manager, not an app.
Window manager's don't try to impose ideas about how contents of a
window should be rendered, right? So why would an application try to
impose its ideas on window manager ?
I'd say by requiring an application to change its UI depending on
whether the WM actually honors a request indeed seems to indicate a WM
that imposes the contents of the application window.
Yeah, and policemen arresting me for shooting another person will also
be imposing his dirty will upon my pure existence.
Let us face it - we all have to follow certain rules. In this particular
case the rule is that no app can never be guaranteed how it will be
decorated, placed or sized, and app should be able to adapt accordingly.
Period. Thinking that you can add a property and get a burden off of
your shoulders ain't gonna help. You can have as many properties as
possible, yet still your app must adapt to the actuall placement.
That tends to get forgotten recently with apps simply rendering what
they want and expecting it to be accepted.
Let's not make this into a flamewar. I guess i will not convince you
Not a war, simply an education. All I do is stating hard facts that we
all have to live by, weather we want it or not.
anyway. But, please, have a little place in your heart for us
application developers that occasionally actually need the window
manager to do what they need. In the end what good is a window manager
without applications ?
Well, above mentioned Motif hints's been around for long time, yet this
whole discussion started as an attempt to get some sort of a guarantee,
a peace of mind on the part of app developers, as Motif hints gets
ignored from time to time. Well, there could be no peace of mind or a
guarantee, by adding more properties you'll increase the chances of them
being ignored, not decrease. Just have to bite the bullet and accept the
fate.
Sasha Vasko
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