Hi, I'm another Gaim hacker. I'm one of the few that actually uses GNOME and Metacity, so maybe I can provide a bit more personal insight than Luke who is largely summarizing the opinions of Gaim developers as a whole.
Let me share how I use GNOME and how the new Metacity behavior is totally busted for me: - I prefer the workspace idiom to the taskbar idiom. The two are essentially redundant, so I don't keep a task list on my panel. I don't have minimize buttons on my titlebars. Instead, I keep a workspace switcher with twelve workspaces stretching across my screen. - I keep a maximize button, becuase I like to surf the web maximized. Naturally, this goes in its own workspace (more often two or three workspaces). Everything else stays at its normal size. - I use Gaim's tabbed conversation windows. I normally get at least one message as soon as I start Gaim, so I can keep that window in its own workspace and not worry about losing track of it. However, when surfing the web, new alerts (most frequently "ThisPerson has added you to his buddy list...") are received and now appear beneath my web browser window. Bold window titles, flashing taskbar buttons, none of those do anything for me because I don't have a tasklist. I typically won't see them until after closing my browser window. Because my browser sessions usually outlive my Gaim sessions, I often never receive these messages. Part of this is Gaim's fault; it simply shouldn't be popping up as many windows as it does. We've been making improvements in this area; perhaps you've noticed them. Where we used to create alerts for messages specific to a conversation, we now print them to the conversation in red bold text, for instance. Our next major release says goodbye to the oft-chided "Disconnected" dialog. It's also notable that reducing the number of windows we create is the *only* way we're able to fix things on Windows, which we're unfortunate enough to have a large userbase on. These focus problems on Windows lead to things like ICQ's brain-dead "we'll just change the icon in the buddy list if you receive a message from that person" UI. But that brain-dead UI is something we'd like to avoid in Gaim; we want to be able to safely create new windows that will be noticed without getting in the way. Previously, they got in the way. Right now, I can not notice new windows at all. I don't care about the spec or DEMANDS_ATTENTION or URGENT or any window manager hints at all. You guys are the experts on that. Please just make it that new windows are guaranteed to be noticed without stealing focus that doesn't depend on certain configurations (like "user has a taskbar"). The obvious way is to have the window raised, but not focused, but I'm sure you guys can figure out the best way. If the window DEMANDS ATTENTION, make sure the user knows about it. Luke sent a "wishlist" that represents an amalgamation of how Gaim developers want window management to happen. We don't have the knowledge to know what's feasible or possible or practical, but we hope it shows a little insight from our camp: one of the few applications that creates windows the user isn't expecting. You seem mostly to focus on windows the user is expecting (specifically application launch, which as desktop developers makes perfect sense, but is something we're naive enough to to have considered at all in our wishlist). We'll (Gaim developers) do our best to keep the number of windows we create to a minimum; even if the window manager handles them the most ideal way it can, they're still an inconvinient intrusion. I ask that you handle those windows we do create as best you can. Thanks for your time. -s. _______________________________________________ wm-spec-list mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/wm-spec-list
