Hate panel interaction with window managers. Way to nullify it?

[Olivier Fourdan]

Paul,

This the whole point of the semantic of window in the EWMH specifications... [1]

The panel sets its type to "dock", the window manager then *may*
decide to treat those particular type of windows differently.

You said you use Compiz, then if Compiz does not treat the dock
windows the way you like, then report that to Compiz.

As the maintainer of xfwm4, I do believe that Compiz does that right
and if you were asking about xfwm4 I would certainly reject the idea
of treating the panel differently from what it is now. The cast
majority of users do expect the panel to remain above other windows
and I believe it's the way it should be. But again, that depends on
the window manager so you may have more luck with Compiz.

Anyway, nothing xfce4-panel can do about. I would certainly oppose
fixing what's not broken, even, I admit, if you hate the way it is
now...

Note, not all hope is lost on your side either, you may want to patch
th code to change the type of the panel window, or even use a 3rd
party tool to change the type dynamically (types are just properties
applied to windows, really), but there, you're on your own.

Cheers,
Olivier

[1] http://standards.freedesktop.org/wm-spec/wm-spec-1.4.html#id2560306

On Sun, Nov 25, 2012 at 6:16 AM, Paul Johnson <pauljohn32 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here's my angry rant about the way panels interact with window
> managers in XFCE4. Can you tell me how to fix? If it matters, I'm
> running Debian Wheezy with XFCE4 packages,  xfce4-panel  4.8.6   and
> the window manager at the moment is compiz 0.8.4.
>
> Basically, I don't want the window in which the panel resides to be
> treated as special and protected. I don't want the panel always on
> top, it should not block window movement or resizing in anyway.
>
> I often want to hide part of the panel, but look at the rest. I like
> to drag windows "off the screen" so I'm only looking at one section of
> the window. I want them to go on top of the part of the panel they
> overlap, but let me look at the rest of the panel, which is not
> covered.
>
> I want to be able to resize a window to go over a part of the panel,
> but leave the rest of the panel showing.
>
> I don't mind if windows maximize on top of the panel. I wish they would.
>
> I want to be able to raise a panel to the top when I want to see it,
> otherwise leave it below, peeking out. Right now, I can see one half
> of a panel (I dragged a window over it). and there appears to be no
> way to raise the panel to the top of the screen. It is necessary to
> move all of the windows off the panel.  I've have difficulty believing
> that anybody likes it this way, unless one is using a cell phone.
>
> In Compiz, I have found some settings that allow me to move windows
> over the top of the panel, but I can't find settings that let me
> resize windows over the panel.  I can "Alt-drag" a window over a
> panel, but cannot "edge drag" to resize over the panel. The drag
> motion is "blocked" at the panel's edge.
>
> The only "workaround" I've found is the panel preferences setting
> "automatically show and hide panel", but I don't want that. It makes
> the panel an all or nothing thing.  Why can't I be allowed to see the
> clock on the top right part of the panel without having the whole rest
> of the panel imposed over the top of the screen?
>
> In the early days of Gnome, before they became so paternalistic, I
> recall a panel setting similar to "treat as ordinary window".  Or am I
> dreaming of a  happier day that never truly existed :) I am not sure.
>
> pj
> --
> Paul E. Johnson
> Professor, Political Science      Assoc. Director
> 1541 Lilac Lane, Room 504      Center for Research Methods
> University of Kansas                 University of Kansas
> http://pj.freefaculty.org               http://quant.ku.edu
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