Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!yale!mintaka!bloom-beacon!EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU!kit
From: kit@EXPO.LCS.MIT.EDU (Chris D. Peterson)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: No keyboard events on overrideShell popups
Message-ID: <9003202011.AA01499@expo.lcs.mit.edu>
Date: 20 Mar 90 20:11:07 GMT
References: <9003201645.AA10445@armory>
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 63


> Sure, and many window managers (the ever popular twm for instance)
> ignore the hint and fully decorate the window.

Side note:  Twm doesn't decorate my transiets, I also believe that you have
	    to explicitly ask it to do so with the DecorateTransients option.


Yes, but this is a matter of user choice.  If the user for some reason believes
that this is what a window manager should do, then there is nothing that stops
him from buying a window manager that does this for him.  Attempting to subvert
this is bad programming, and anti-social :-)

> ...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.

Agreed, this is bad, but I have yet to have a window manager actually do this to
me.  This is not reason enough to use OverrideRedirect windows, there are better
ways of working around this problem.  For example, you can set the USSize and
USPosition hints, while this is the wrong thing to do, it should have no effect
on a transient window anyway since its behavior should be to place the window
where the program wants it.

> 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...

Wrong.  This is just the wrong thing to do.  Some users actually want their
transients decorated since they want to be able tot move them around, and resize
them.  

Example:

A user has selected load-file in a Text editor, and you have just popped up a
dialog window asking him if he is really wants to remove all changes.  The
dialog is most likely over the text window, so the user wants to move it out of
the way, while he checks to see of he can destroy the buffer.  If you had coded
this with an OverrideRedirect window the user may very well be unable to move
that 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?".

We are dealing with conventions here and good programs should follow them.
If window managers to things right, and clients do things right then everyone
will win.  If application writers try to second guess the window manager, or
work around buggy implementations then they will only enforce the poor
behavior that we are currently seeing because everyone is not playing by the
rules.  

Solution number 1:  Ship twm with your product :-)


						Chris D. Peterson     
						MIT X Consortium 

Net:	 kit@expo.lcs.mit.edu
Phone:   (617) 253 - 9608	
Address: MIT - Room NE43-213