Re: Gnome is not easy to use in 800x600

[John Harper <john dcs warwick ac uk>]

Brandon S. Allbery KF8NH writes:
|In particular, the specification that the WM maintain window positions has 
|so many flaws it is ludicrous.  Some examples:
|
|- you can't change window managers without losing your saved window
|  information

of course you can. Session management data allows you to _restart_ your
session in the same state. If you want to change window managers you
should do it while the session is running -- exit one wm, then start
the new one. The new wm will then take over the responsibility of
saving the session data

|
|- wm/sm interaction is undefined and problematic

X11R6 session management is quite well defined imho, what bits are you
referring to?

|
|- interaction between both wm/sm and USPosition/PPosition is apparently
|  sufficiently problematic that user-specified geometry doesn't work
|  reliably in at least some apps once a window has been positioned manually
|  (reproduced with gnome-terminal and sawfish; I suggested the person who
|  tripped over this mail to gnome-devel-list, but he hasn't yet that I've
|  seen).

That's because gnome-terminal goes against the ICCCM and tries to save
its own position (or it may have been because sawfish got its window
move behaviour wrong in previous versions -- either way, it's because
one of the apps wasn't following the letter of the ICCCM)

|
|Granted that we have no good alternative to the ICCCM or the XSM spec, but 
|following either when they are obviously wrong can only be called stupid.

``obviously wrong'' is quite strong. What are you referring to?

|
|(This is a general X11 rant and is not limited to GNOME, by the way; there 
|are similar examples of the insanity imposed by slavish ICCM/XSM compliance 
|in KDE, CDE, etc.)

slavish ICCCM compliance at least gives applications written for these
environments the chance to run outside them (and the new wm-spec should
extend this further...)

	John