Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!ardent.UUCP!jkh
From: jkh@ardent.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Why window managers? (was Re: output in icons)
Message-ID: <8806221643.AA00408@scrod.ardent.com>
Date: 22 Jun 88 16:43:05 GMT
References: <22428@think.UUCP>
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 27

>I think there are a couple of reasons for window managers.  First of
>all, it reduces network I/O, by allowing many of the routine,
>repetitive actions of managing a set of windows to be done in the
>server, without requiring an excessive set of messages between the
>client and server machines.

Actually, it doesn't buy you that. Since the window manager is a client
like anything else, the round trip time still exists. In fact, because
of some of the mechanisms often required to implement certain types
of window managers, having a window manager configure a window is
often quite a bit more expensive than just having the window move itself.

What the window manager buys you more than anything else is the ability
to change the "look and feel" (oh no! lawsuit! lawsuit!) of an arbitrary
set of client windows without having to recompile them with a different
toolkit (or whatever library you implement to handle window management at the
client level). You're free to run any window manager you want, and as
long as it follows some reasonable set of conventions, the client doesn't
have to know which one it is.

Window managers also allow a more "global" viewpoint on the window hierarchy,
which makes things like tiling window managers possible. It would be
very difficult (not to mention really messy) to do that sort of thing
at the client level.


						Jordan Hubbard