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From: mouse@lightning.mcrcim.mcgill.EDU (der Mouse)
Subject: Re: How do I give a popup window a title?
Message-ID: <9105021342.AA18305@lightning.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Sender: daemon@athena.mit.edu (Mr Background)
Organization: The Internet
Date: 2 May 91 13:42:52 GMT
Lines: 53

>> Popups are "overrideredirect", [...]
>> What this means is that the window manager, the entity responsible
>> for such niceties as window titles is being bypassed.

> Not quite.  It means that the window manager won't attempt to modify
> the geometry request for the window creation.

The ICCCM is not entirely clear, to me, on this point: how much are
window managers permitted to meddle with override-redirect windows?
The ICCCM says that override-redirect should not be used except for two
cases, one being a popup such as a menu and the other being a special
case involving ResizeRedirect; I will ignore the latter here.  Quoting:

	4.1.10. Popup Windows
	
	Clients wishing to pop-up a window can do one of three things:
	
	o They can create and map another normal top-level window,
	  which will get decorated and managed as normal by the window
	  manager.  See the discussion of window groups below.
	
	o If the window will be visible for a relatively short time,
	  and deserves a somewhat lighter treatment, they can set the
	  WM_TRANSIENT_FOR property.  They can expect less decoration,
	  but can set all the normal window manager properties on the
	  window.  An example would be a dialog box.
	
	o If the window will be visible for a very short time, and
	  should not be decorated at all, the client can set
	  override-redirect on the window.  In general, this should be
	  done only if the pointer is grabbed while the window is
	  mapped.  The window manager will never interfere with these
	  windows, which should be used with caution.  An example of an
	  appropriate use is a pop-up menu.

It's not clear just what "interfere with" means.  I would assume it
means that the window manager will not do anything with the window,
including reparenting and decorating, but it doesn't quite *say* that.
Certainly all the language that talks about client top-level windows is
careful to keep saying "non-override-redirect" all over the place.

> For instance, all the dialog boxes I get under mwm have the standard
> window decorations.

These sound more like transients (the second item on the list above).
Such windows have WM_TRANSIENT_FOR properties, but don't have
override-redirect set.  Try using xwininfo on one of your dialog boxes
to see whether it really does have override-redirect turned on.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu