Path: utzoo!censor!geac!jtsv16!uunet!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!mailrus!ames!think!bloom-beacon!LCS.MIT.EDU!MAP
From: MAP@LCS.MIT.EDU (Michael A. Patton)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Window Managers and Client Menus
Message-ID: <8909181736.AA04699@gaak.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 18 Sep 89 17:36:54 GMT
References: <654@thor.wright.EDU>
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 47


   Date: 17 Sep 89 07:20:49 GMT
   From: ncrlnk!wright!maize!adatta@uunet.uu.net  (Amitava Datta)

   > Example: a menu invoked by clicking
   > on something on the screen.  

   That ``something on the screen'' has to be some window.

WRONG!  In the application I have, the right mouse button gets a menu,
which menu it gets depends where in the master window you are, but
this is NOT done with sub-windows (for various reasons that don't
matter here).  This means that your scheme is inadequate for my
application to use.  I would really like to have some commonality in
menu operation (My application supports the type of menu *I* like, but
others want something else :-).  Unfortunately your suggestion so far
is not general enough for me to use.

The program maintains a window with a bunch of stuff drawn on it.
Some of this stuff is dynamic, it comes and goes or changes size
and/or position depending on all sorts of mouse input and typed
commands, eventually some of these changes will even be based on non-X
initiated activities.  Some of these things may be quite small and I
don't want to require the user to get an exact hit.  When the user
clicks the mouse, the application looks over what's displayed now to
"guess" what the user was pointing at and responds.  In the case of
the right mouse button (by default), this response generates a menu
which depends on what "kind" of thing the user had selected.  There is
no practical way to even maintain a list of areas where different
menus might come up, it really has to be figured out on a per-menu
basis.  What I would want is some way to register the various menus
with the WM (or MM) and then have my application trigger them on
whatever IT decides is the right criteria.  This could be a Client
message to my top-level window (which the WM is watching for because
of the property), or something else.  In fact a Client message to
initiate the menu and another (logically from the WM to the App) to
describe what was selected seems like the most general solution to
this.

	-Mike Patton

P.S. As a separate point, I like the idea of distinct Window Manager
and Menu Manager.  There is presently no window manager I have tried
for which I really like both the way it handles windows and the way it
does its menus.  If I could mix and match, this would give me a much
wider range of options.  As it is I compromise I one where neither is
done in a way I HATE.