Removing decorations from a window

[Heinrich Rebehn]

Benedikt Meurer wrote:
> Chris Green wrote:
> 
>>>>... and it works perfectly, thanks very much indeed Benedikt. I now
>>>>have a clock with no decorations!  :-)
>>>>
>>>>I still can't find the above structure documented anywhere in the Xlib
>>>>header files, I've looked hard.  The only hints structure I can find
>>>>in the X header files I have is XWMHints which doesn't have the
>>>>decorations bit. Where is what you put into that hints structure
>>>>documented?
>>>
>>>As said several times in this thread: It has nothing to do with Xlib.
>>>It's a structure defined by Motif. You can find it in the Motif/Lesstif
>>>sources, in the gdk-x11 sources, in the Qt sources, and in the source of
>>>virtually every window manager known today.
>>
>>It makes life a bit difficult really doesn't it.  Here I am writing
>>(well modifying in this case) an Xlib based X application, and I want
>>to change some hints and the only way I can do it is by using a set of
>>Widgets/Libraries/WMs that neither I nor the WM being targetted
>>apparently use.  OK, so xfce *does* know about the Motif stuff but it
>>does seem a bit obtuse that this is the only way to effect this
>>change.
> 
> 
> "Mechanism, not policy", that's the philosophy of the X Window System.
> 
> 
>>As someone else pointed out it's also a bit unfriendly to the poor
>>non-programmer user.  The 'right' way to do something like remove
>>decorations (which the WM has put there whether you like it or not) is
>>to re-program the application!
> 
> 
> It's always better to fix a problem, than to work around it. Else, at
> some time, you'll end up with a software, that consists only of work
> arounds. There are a *lot* of window managers that follow the
> "work-around rather than fix"-paradigm, and those are usually heavier
> than xfwm4. Their maintainers may like that paradigm and may think it's
> worth putting that junk into the window manager and blowing it up. As
> you might have noticed: That's not Xfce's way of thinking.
> 
Disclaimer: I am not asking for any modifications to xfwm4!!
wmctrl, devilspie and sawfish are there for those who need it.
(I have been using sawfish now for years).

I would just like to move the discussion away from the "broken app/
workaround" point of view.
Displaying apps w/o deco, starting on dedicated desktops, starting
maximised, skipping on ALT/TAB, excluding from windowlist etc are all
features that make life easier for me and help me keep my desktop organized.
It's about useful features, not workarounds for broken apps. That way
you can see it in a more positive way.

--Heinrich