Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!hplabs!hpda!hp-sde!hpfcdc!hpfclp!diamant
From: diamant@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM (John Diamant)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Novice question about X toolkits
Message-ID: <9740036@hpfclp.SDE.HP.COM>
Date: 2 Jul 88 21:07:47 GMT
References: <19880629193417.1.DWJ@ANAXIMANDER.THINK.COM>
Organization: HP SDE, Fort Collins, CO
Lines: 41

> Positioning a window with the mouse:
> "Window Manager" applications perform these services on behalf of users.
> User positioning of top level windows should never be built into applications
> themselves. Some window managers currently available include uwm, twm,
> awm, and now even the infamous rtl window manager :-). 

This is an interesting question, but I don't think it is quite as clear cut
as it sounds.  Currently, uwm (and probably awm, though I haven't tried it),
at least, ignore the position if specified by the program,
as opposed to the user.  Actually, uwm will use the program specified hints
on transient windows, which seems reasonable (since rubber banding is
unreasonable for a dialog box and the application is probably in a better
position to place the dialog box than the window manager).  Typically, a
dialog box is a separate top level shell (in the Xt Intrinsics, anyway),
so I'm not sure if you meant your comments to apply to them as well.

I can easily conceive of cases where the window manager could not possibly
place a dialog box as well as an application could (because the application
has knowledge of the contents of the dialog box).

So, I agree with you, only if you didn't mean to include transient windows
when you said top level windows (even though they are in the sense of the
X window tree).

There is yet another problem with this whole distinction.  I admit I may have
misunderstood the code when looking at it, but it appeared that the Xt
Intrinsics will call a geometry specification user-specified if they come out
of the resource database, and program specified only if not specified in the
database.  But, in fact, the geometry is program specified if it appears
in app-defaults and user specified if it appears in .Xdefaults or any of
the other user controlled access points to the database (xrdb, XENVIRONMENT).
The user rarely will have control over the app-defaults file except to the
extent that he may also be system administrator and muck with the standard
files.  Typically, programmers and systems integrators will change
app-defaults files, but not users.


John Diamant
Software Development Environments
Hewlett-Packard Co.		ARPA Internet: diamant@hpfclp.sde.hp.com
Fort Collins, CO		UUCP:  {hplabs,hpfcla}!hpfclp!diamant