xfwm4 changes

[Olivier Fourdan]

Hi all,

A little overview of the recent changes in xfwm4.

* Themes can (and should) be specified by only their name instead of the
full path to the theme. xfwm4 looks for $HOME/.themes/xfwm4/<theme> and,
then in /usr/share/xfwm4/themes/<theme>

* I've introduced the concept of "keythemes" similar to decoration
themes, but for keyboard shortcuts.

The goal is to pave the way for a reduced set of settings in order to
migrate to a simili xsettings protocol.

I'm thinking of a protocol, technically closed to xsettings, but with
channels. Every application could then "subscribe" to one or more
channel(s) and then receive events relative the subscribed channels.
There would be no "common" channel as this should be "xsettings" itself.
An application can use both xsettings and the channel protocol (for
example, xfwm4 retrives the fonts and double click time from xsettings
while other more specific settings would come from xfce protocol)

So what's next :

* Take some wmspec core logic out of xfwm4 and make a separate
library/API so other apps can make use of the work that has been done in
xfwm4 (I'm thinking of apps such as the pager, taskbar and other desktop
icons here)

* finalize the spec of the protocol, and come with a sample
implementation. xfwm4 will be the test case for that as this will give
it a GUI for setting xfwm4 prefs.

* A devel relese of xfwm4 should occur before the changes take place, so
people using devel snapshots can stil lbenefot from the recent changes.

No timeline though, don't hold your breath ;-) 

Cheers,
-- 
Olivier               <fourdan at xfce.org>            http://www.xfce.org
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