Removing decorations from a window

[Chris Green]

On Mon, Aug 22, 2005 at 08:13:52AM -0700, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> Chris Green wrote:
> > Further to my previous enquiry about removing decorations from a
> > window, I seem to be between two opposing camps arguing about how this
> > should be done but with neither camp giving me the tools to do it!
> > 
> > Since the decorations are created (and customised) by the Window
> > Manager it seems to me reasonable that the Window Manager should offer
> > options which allow one to say that certain windows should have no
> > decorations.  However the xfce Window manager doesn't seem to offer
> > this possibility.
> 
> What seems reasonable to you may not seem reasonable to others...  IMO,
> the WM should do what apps tell it to do, and offer minimal, if any,
> "override" functionality.
> 
OK, I'm listening!  :-)


> > So I go to the other end and look at the options in Xlib and there all
> > I find is that, since the decorations are created by the Window
> > Manager it's non-portable to have functions to remove the decorations
> > from the client end.
> >
> > Grrrr!
> 
> Not sure what you're looking at, but it's probably very old: most modern
> WMs will follow the spec and pay attention to WM hints.  Xfwm4 will, at
> least.
> 
It's not "very old" it's just the lowest level of X application
programming I think, it's what GTK etc. must use to do X things.

I can't find any documentation relating to WM hints which ask the
Window Manager not to display decorations, that's all I want and it
doesn't seem to exist atthe client end.


> > It's surely possible because some of the xfce utilities don't have
> > decorations, maybe I'll end up having to look at the source code for
> > them but I fear they go through GTK etc. and I want the basic Xlib
> > functions to get a window without decorations.
> 
> Well, GTK uses doesn't do anything GTK-specific to remove window
> decorations.  It's uses Xlib as its backend, y'know.  I suggest you
> implement the Xlib way in your app and see if it works, rather than just

It *IS* an Xlib based application.


> ranting and whining here.  This isn't an Xlib programming help ML, after
> all.  If you still can't figure it out, grab the GTK source and look at
> how GTK does it (hint: start at gtk_window_set_decorated()).
> 
Yes, I've found that, but I can't find anything 'below' it that
corresponds to what it does in Xlib, that's all I want but I really
really can't find it at the moment.

-- 
Chris Green (chris at areti.co.uk)

    "Never ascribe to malice that which can be explained by incompetence."