Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!peregrine!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hpcvlx!gabe
From: gabe@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com (Gabe Begeddov)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif
Subject: Re: problems creating and destroy app shells
Message-ID: <110630029@hpcvlx.cv.hp.com>
Date: 5 Dec 90 19:47:57 GMT
References: <5613@mnetor.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Corvallis, OR, USA
Lines: 33


   And while I'm griping about shells :-)...
   
   Maybe someone can comment on the following..
   If you create dialog shells that are "popup shells" from a parent
   shell, then those dialogs are part of the parent's "group" and will
   be iconified when the parent is.  The problem is, you can't raise
   the parent to be *over* it's dialogs...  The dialogs are also popped
   up at 0,0 (topleft corner of screen) rather than anywhere you try
   to position them using XmNx or XmNy.  Even if you do this in a mapCallback
   function.  You also can't set these dialogs' colors easily in app-defaults
   files ... basically, this all happens with:

Popup shells are secondary windows (see style guide) by default especially in
the case of DialogShell. In fact DialogShell is intended for use mainly
with motif dialog widgets (subclasses of BulletinBoard). In XUI DialogShell 
wasn't even visible to the programmer (it was called HiddenShell). In any 
case you should usually be using subclasses of ApplicationShell with 
XtAppCreateShell and are asking for trouble if you pass a lesser shell in.

To solve your problem of stacking order you can use the XmNtransient boolean
resource that is available on all WMShell subclasses. If set to false then
the transient_for property will not be set and Mwm will treat it as a seperate
top level window (for both iconification and stacking).

On the issue of placement, I don't know why it wouldn't work if you are specifying
an x,y prior to popping it up. If you use DialogShell in the default motif way
then you would be "popping" it up by managing the dialog child in which case you
could use the XmNdefaultPosition resource to get centering over the grandparent
of the dialog.
   
If you need a general purpose secondary window that wont be used with Bulletin
boards then use TransientShell or TopLevelShell rather than DialogShell.