Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!WB1.CS.CMU.EDU!Bill.Chiles
From: Bill.Chiles@WB1.CS.CMU.EDU
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Twm and Repositioning Windows
Message-ID: <5916.590696332@CHILES.SLISP.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: 19 Sep 88 18:18:52 GMT
Sender: daemon@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 38


First, I must say that I fully understand the policy of fighting with
window managers and trying to play window manager yourself (you being a
client).

Okay, now.  I have an application that now and then (at the user's request)
wants to split one of its windows into two, shrinking the original to
consume half its previous space.  The new window occupies the newly vacant
screen area.  When one of these two halves is deleted (again by the user),
I want to grow the other window to take up the space.  Growing the top one
works fine, but when you grow the botton one, you must also move it up to
where the top one was.

Under twm, this seems impossible.  It does not honor basic reconfiguration
with new positions, and it ignores the "Inter-Client Communication
Conventions Manual" (that is, setting the normal hints as well as sending
repositioning requests).  I understand that it is legal for the window
manager to ignore this activity, but I find it plainly offensive that it
fights so hard when other reasonable window managers are willing to comply.

Has anyone modified twm's code to be like awm's code in this respect?  Am I
correct in assuming that twm is purposefully ignoring repositioning
requests?  Or is this a twm bug?  Is there a fix for it?

I would very much like to get a patch for this.  I do not hack C code, so I
cannot do this for myself with the complexity of the twm implementation.
Our local X maintainers are not interested in patching twm from awm's
sources until the "Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual" is law,
and it is shown that twm is really at fault.  Basically, they don't care
about doing what's reasonable unless they have to, and there is no reason
that I can tell why twm does not support repositioning.  This must be an
oversight or bug.  If I could supply them with a fix, then they would
install it.

Can anyone help?  Are there any comments on this other "Your client should
not ..."?

Bill