Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!uwmcsd1!ig!agate!ucbvax!VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU!jkh
From: jkh@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: re: How do I check if I'm an icon?
Message-ID: <8802070451.AA21699@violet.berkeley.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 88 04:51:25 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 41

>If you're using Xlib instead of the toolkit (you are?  fie!) 
>you can easily solicit events using StructureNotifyMask and keep track of

As mentioned earlier, this is not necessarily foolproof. Since the
window manager (whichever one it is) will be de/iconifying you, it makes
sense for there to be some mechanism (perhaps a prop?) whereby the wm
can communicate this back. uwm (the hacked version) keeps context
information that tells whether or not the window is iconified, titled or
generally modified in some way by the window manager. If the context
handles were advertised, I suppose one could do XFindContext calls on
a window to see what was defined for it, but this seems like a kludge. 

The REAL PROBLEM is a seemingly total lack of agreement on more 
"standard" property types. There are all sorts of gadgets that window
managers are/will be creating in the near future (title bars, gadget boxes,
etc etc) that are completely unchangable as far as clients are
concerned. I can't even tell what a client chose for background
foreground and border colors, which is essential if the window manager
is to modify windows intelligently (who wants black and white gadgets on
a multi-colored window?). Then there are things like the preferred
title bar font, whether or not a title bar is even desired (a title bar
on a clock looks stupid) and all sorts of size/shape specifications.

I'm sure that someone, somewhere, is thinking about this (Ellis? You out
there?), but they're not nearly public enough. I'd be more than happy
to propose a few property types, but if the applications folk don't adhere
to them (or if I've chosen conflicting names), it's for nothing.

The same nasty divergence that occurred in X10 (what? You're writing
a terminal emulator too??) is even more possible in X11.
Who's driving?


			Jordan "Spaceman spiff is going down!" Hubbard
			jkh@violet.berkeley.edu
			hplabs!ardent!jkh


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"I was with my girlfriend at the time... Morgan Fairchild. Yeah. That's it,
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