what to do with xfdesktop

[Olivier FOURDAN]

Hi Jasper,

I think you are trying to find the right answer to the wrong question, and I bet that won't take you anywhere.

Using a desktop type window is the standard and the right solution (kde does it, nautilus does it, rox does it, etc.).

Now, for me, the right question is, what do we do with our "fake root" window. Do we use it to put some icons, ala Windows (or Rox) o do we use it to store apps icons (ala xfce3)

I really don't care about old apps such as xpenguins or xplanet. It's up to the freedesktop to find a way for those apps to update the desktop image (being  the root win or antoher window). First set up a standard way of achieving this goal and we shall implement it (note that we may raise the issue on freedesktop list and see what are other people's point of view)

Just as an idea, if the app that runs in background accept a win id for display, then we could offer something like

[x] Use application to repaint workspace
      [xplanet -id $root ]

=> then xfdesktop would replace $root with its own window xid so the app is able to draw onto xfdesktop window (xscreensaver programs offer such an option)

As for the menu in xfwm4, you guess right :)

Cheers,
Olivier.

> Hey all,
> 
> As you may know, I have been trying to get rid of the full-screen window
> in xfdesktop, in order to allow other apps to paint on the root. And let
> apps like rox pass clicks on their desktop windows on to the root window
> (this works with my current test code, see below).
> 
> As a consequence I have now gone completely insane, trying to figure out
> what is going on between X, gtk, gdk, xfwm4, xfdesktop and even
> metacity.
> 
> This is what I found so far:
> 
> * using an input-only full-screen window breaks all kinds of apps
> (xmag). This is what is currently in CVS.
> 
> * Trying to select input on the root window while xfwm4 is running gives
> X errors.
> 
> * You can select input on the proxy window pointed to by the
> _WIN_DESKTOP_BUTTON_PROXY property
> 
> * Strangely enough, metacity does not grab the root window (and doesn't
> set the proxy window/property)
> 
> * The nicest way to get the events that I found is this:
> - use gdk_event_handler_set() to get GdkEvents instead of gtk.
> - in the event handler use gtk_main_do_event () to pass un-handled
> events on to gtk.
> 
> There are still a number of problems.
> 
> * if run on startup (usual case) xfdesktop sometimes doesn't receive
> events even though we got the correct window id for the proxy window and
> we selected input on it after xfwm4 was initialized. This depends on
> timing: sometimes it does work and running manually after startup always
> works. 
> Something happens to the window after starting xfwm4, but I have no idea
> what.
> To solve this I put in a timeout that selects input again after 5
> seconds, which is incredibly ugly but does seem to work ;)
> 
> * I don't know how to tell whether a window manager stops running. This
> is useful for telling when the user changes window manager.
> 
> * restarting xfwm4 works, because I check for changes in the proxy
> window property.
> 
> * it works with metacity, because in that case I will select input on
> the root window.
> 
> * it doesn't work if I change from xfwm4 to metacity because I get no
> property notification for the proxy window property, so xfdesktop keeps
> listening to events from the now non-existing proxy window.
> 
> * it also doesn't work changing from metacity to xfwm4, because xfwm4
> refuses to start if xfdesktop has selected input on the root window and
> I have no idea how to tell when metacity is killed.
> 
> 
> My current code is available here:
> 
> http://members.home.nl/xfce4/files/xfdesktop-test-20031125.tar.bz2 (2MB)
> 
> If anyone has any ideas, please have a look. The interesting bits are
> all in src/menu.c .
> 
> 
> Anyway, that leaves us with the question of what to do with xfdesktop:
> 
> * keep the full-screen window like in 4.0.x: works, but no root-tail,
> xpenguins, etc, and we don't really use the window for anything useful
> (except catching mouse clicks).
> 
> * use the full-screen input-only window (current CVS): buys you nothing
> except that xplanet works ;-) Many other programs do not, so I don't
> think this is really acceptable.
> 
> * Use my test code that works with xfwm4 and metacity and simply don't
> change wm's. Doesn't feel right, really.
> 
> * Only work with wm's that use a proxy window. This might be ok. In this
> case perhaps it makes just as much sense to choose the next solution...
> 
> * Put the menu in xfwm4 and be done with it ;-) This will work, but I
> don't think Olivier will like it ...
> 
> 
> Please comment,
> 
> 	Jasper
> 
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