Re: [Usability] window manager configuration

[Jamie Zawinski <jwz jwz org>]

Havoc Pennington wrote:
> 
>> Autohidden panels MUST be always on top else it just doesn't work.
> 
> Not on top of everything though - e.g. not on top of a presentation
> program. That's why we need the semantic hints. :-/

Presentation programs aren't normal programs; they don't want window
management at all.  I think for presentation programs to work at all,
they *have* to be using override-redirect windows anyway, so they're
going around the window manager and it's irrelevant.

For example, some window manager might reasonably decide that it's
policy that no window can be larger than the physical screen, and that
all windows have border decorations.  Obviously that's gonna screw up
presentations too, because they won't be able to make the screen go
totally black.

I can't even imagine the world of hurt I would have been in had I tried
to allow the xscreensaver window to be window-managed.

You could try to define some new hint that says "hey window manager,
please behave as if I'm override-redirect", but why?  Anyone who is
writing a program that needs to do full-screen undecorated stuff is
gonna write that program as override-redirect anyway, because they can't
count on that hint being obeyed, and it's a critical requirement, not
just something that "would be nice."

-- 
Jamie Zawinski
jwz jwz org             http://www.jwz.org/
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