Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU!jimf%saber
From: jimf%saber@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: No keyboard events on overrideShell popups
Message-ID: <9003201645.AA10445@armory>
Date: 20 Mar 90 16:45:14 GMT
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 22

|I would suggest that you use a transientShell popup instead.  [...]
|Many window managers will
|provide less decoration for transientShell popups than for regular windows.
|For instance, olwm will provide a border but no title bar for transient
|windows.

Sure, and many window managers (the ever popular twm for instance)
ignore the hint and fully decorate the window and -- much worse for
transients -- force the user to place the window, which is kind of
stupid since most transients are confirm dialogs which only want a yes
or no click before they go away.

My conclusion is that there's a documented way to accomplish
transients but that method is useless in practice because many common
window managers ignore it, leaving the applications writer no
alternative but to use an override redirect window, a nastyism that I
would prefer to avoid.  As I told someone yesterday, "do you want to
know the 'right' way that doesn't work or the 'wrong' way that does?".

jim frost
saber software
jimf@saber.com