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From: don@atlantis.coral.com (Don Dewar)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x.motif
Subject: Mwm question
Message-ID: <9105181233.AA06745@atlantis.coral.com>
Date: 18 May 91 12:33:06 GMT
References: <910517200148.884@sun.alfalfa.com>
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) Return-Path: <uunet!alfalfa.com!motif-request>
) Subject: Mwm question
) To: motif@alfalfa.com (The Motif Discussion List)
) Cc: kddlab!cs.titech!wnoc-tyo-news!dclsic!sjc!leia!harkcom (Alton Harkcom)
) X-Mailer: Poste 1.0
) From: uunet!alfalfa.com!nazgul (Kee Hinckley)
) Date: Fri, 17 May 91 20:01:48 -0400
) 
) Several people have noted that my response ...
) 
) Back to the question at hand though.  After playing with it I'm
) not entirely sure what algorithm Mwm *does* use.  If I deiconify
) a window, and then create a new window and iconify it, it fills
) the space left by the last window (this is Mwm 1.1).  In my mind
) that space ought to (and this is what I had thought Mwm did) be
) left open so long as a window corresponding to it exists.  In 
) other words each window should have an icon position that is
) remembered and not disturbed unless the user explicitly moves
) things around.  Thoughts?
) 
) 					-kee
) 
) 

And here we go...  I disagree and it is a matter of personal
perference and style.  I like to conserve screen space as much as
possible and I bring up lots of clients and "iconify" and "deiconfify"
them all the time.  I think the current algorithm makes better use of
screen realestate.  I believe your method gives a better sense of
spacial reference of where the icon will be, but I don't find that
particularly useful, whereas some else might.

This brings to mind your original statement about mwm being too
flexible.  Here is a case where I would like to do it one way and you
would like to do it another.  Should this be yet another user
cutomizable feature of mwm?  I don't believe you could argue that
either algorithm is better.  They both have advantages and
disadvantages, so which do you choose.

Here is my interpretation of the alogorithm by the way.  A client will
be iconified back to the same place if that space is available.  If
you iconify a client that has never been iconified before, it will be
iconfied in the first available space.  If a new client has been
iconfied into a space used by an existing client, the existing client
will be iconified into the first available space.

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