Re: Some Thoughts/Rewrite of specs

[Kenneth Christíqua <kenneth ripen dk>]

Yes I think that a rewrite would be very nice, but I also think that 
we should drop the name 'GNOME compliant' and replace it with something 
like 'GNU hints compliant', since the specs should not be tied to gnome.
For instance the XFCE desktop environment also use the current gnome-specs.
We should then cooperate with other teams like that of the KDE, 
and make some specs for making a wm 'GNU hints level 1 compliant' and 
'GNU hints level 2 compliant' and then both the GNOME and the KDE team
can use the same hints


This will make it way easier for for wm authors to support KDE and GNOME,
and further promote cooperation between the two teams

'GNU hints level 1 compliant' will be the standard hints, and level 2 will
include stuff like CORBA compliance

Kenneth



> 
> * GNOME WM Spec Re-write
> 
> This was something I was talking with Miguel about as well, and he is
> very interested in seeing this happen. I have to say that in some ways I
> am a perfect test case for this; I have recently acquired the position of
> becoming the maintainer of the GNOME Compliancy Patch for BlackBox. I have
> many questions about how a WM should integrate with GNOME, and some basic
> questions, like what is GNOME compliance? How should this be achieved? The
> current "spec" is, in my opinion and the opinion of the BlackBox mailing
> list, less a specification and more of a HOWTO. This isn't really good,
> because if I don't understand the concepts, there is no way it's going to
> happen short of a miracle.
> 
> Not all WMs use pagers... for instance, BlackBox does not. For us to
> support the GNOME pager, we need an idea of how it works. How a WM should
> prepare itself to receive a message from the pager that the user used the
> pager to shift workspaces/areas. The best way to rewrite the spec in my
> opinion is to start with defining and explaing the common terms. Then move
> on to how they should interact. Then give example code.
> 
> CORBA compliance is another issue to be addressed in the revised spec,
> listing the pros and cons GNOME/WMs would gain by interacting in this 
> fashion.
> 
> And if we can find some way to generate some basic code to implement
> in a WM, that would be even better. Right now I am taking the previous
> patch and shifting things to a separate GNOME.cc file. Hopefully by writing
> generic functions, we can possibly even develop an API for the
> communication between the WM and the GNOME applications.
> 
> Another thing that needs to be explained is what applications need
> to be supported to be considered "compliant". Obviously, the pager is, and 
> GMC should be. Are there any other applications besides these two that should?
> 
> I realize that this is a long post, as they go, but some topics to think
> about, and I'll be monitoring this thread closely. I'm very interested in 
> helping to contribute, and have some specific issues that I feel are important
> to help us move on. Without a strong WM support, there is a lot of user choice
> and configurability that will not be existant in our desktop environment, and
> while we could write one and tout it as "the" GNOME WM, this should not be
> the case.
> 
> --Nathan