Re: RFC GnomeGoal #3

[Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>]

Marc-André Lureau wrote:
> I  might be the  only one,  but I  would rather  let Metacity  (or any
> window manager) do the job  of positionning/sizing my windows.  As you
> could read on the msdn blog,  saving state of an application is really
> tricky.
The window manager does not have enough information - it can't tell 
which windows are "the same" and what info to save for each.
Shaun outlined some examples of how "the same" is different for 
nautilus, web browser, a document editor, evolution, etc.
There is probably a way to do this in the WM if someone invented and 
adequately documented the appropriate new hints, but the existing 
class/role hints are not good enough; apps have too many confused ideas 
about what to set them to.
So application changes are definitely required, even if the WM is involved.

If you think about the API I proposed, it could potentially be 
implemented by setting some window manager hint to contain the provided 
window ID, then letting the WM do the actual saving. It could even do 
this for WMs that support it, and fall back to saving stuff itself 
otherwise.
What we need from the apps for sure though is for them to say which 
windows are "the same"
Havoc