Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.open-look
Subject: Re: GWM under OW2.0?
Message-ID: <7470@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 27 Apr 91 21:18:23 GMT
References: <26960@hydra.gatech.EDU> <29184@fs1.NISC.SRI.COM>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 40

>Hmm- the thing you have to remember here is that openwin is actually
>two servers in one - a X11 server, and a sunview server.  If you use a
>window manager other than olwm, that window manager won't know about
>the sunview windows -- won't recognize them, can't do anything with
>them, etc. etc.

There appear to be several bits of confusion here.

1) The fact that the window server in Open Windows is a merged X11/NeWS
   server has nothing to do with the fact that you can run SunView
   applications "on top of" (both figuratively and literally) that
   server.  One could, given enough information and time, hack up a
   version of the MIT X11 server that could run SunView applications "on
   top of" it in the same fashion that the X11/NeWS server does;
   essentially, the server has to pretend to be, from the standpoint
   of SunView, the "sunview" program, and it does its painting of
   windows that *it* manages in the root SunView window.  (Think of it
   as a dynamically-changing SunView root window.  It would, of course,
   have to get its raw keyboard and mouse events in SunView form from
   "/dev/win0", rather than from "/dev/kbd" and "/dev/mouse".)

2) "The Sun-supplied OL applications (cm, cmdtool, shelltool, dbxtool,
   etc.)" are *NOT* SunView applications; they are X applications, using
   the XView toolkit.

3) "olwm" doesn't know anything about SunView applications, nor about
   NeWS applications; it's a perfectly ordinary X11 window manager.  The
   only thing it knows about NeWS is how to send PostScript stuff to the
   server from a "POSTSCRIPT" menu item, and it does *that* by opening a
   pipe to "psh".  SunView applications draw their own borders, etc..

I've run XView applications such as "shelltool" under "twm", and "twm"
treats their windows like any other X windows, putting borders up, etc.. 
I've no idea why "gwm" would fail to treat their like any other X
windows.  (See, there *is* a context in which the phrase "X windows" is
correct. :-))

"twm" and other non-OL window managers won't know about all the extra
OPEN LOOK protocols for dealing with pushpins and the like, but they
most definitely *can* decorate a "shelltool" main window.