Re: Mac-style menus

[Paul Warren <pdw ferret lmh ox ac uk>]

I can't find the rest of this thread, so please excuse me if I've missed
anything...

On Thu, 8 Jun 2000, Michael Rogers wrote:

> > I'm still convinced that the best way to do this is to create a
> > Menu Applet which apps will send their menus to.
> 
> One thing to bear in mind is that Mac-style menus only make sense in a 
> click-to-focus environment. With sloppy focus it will often be impossible to 
> reach the menu without losing focus to another app. Possibilities:
> 
> * Let the Menu Applet control the window manager's focus policy. Window 
>   manager writers will not love you.

Very true.

> * Implement the feature in a window manager.

This is almost certainly the best option as it allows you to prevent its
use in a sloppy focus environment.

> > I plan to make this completely transparent to apps. The work of
> > getting the menus to the applet would all be handled in the
> > GnomeApp menu code. All the user has to do is add the applet to a
> > panel and check an option in gnomecc. Apps will then
> > automatically use the menu applet.
> 
> I think you could just add code to GnomeApp which marks the menubar window 
> with a "this is a menubar" property. One line of code.  :)  The window manager 
> (any window manager - get it added to the new wm-spec) would detect this 
> property and reparent the menubar into a special frame at the top of the 
> screen. 

Indeed, the current draft has provisions for this kind of thing.  You can
mark a window as beeing a tool window, or a detached menu.  Theoretically,
the Window Manager could then be configured to hide such windows when
other windows are selected.

Paul