Re: [hackers] [tabbed] Urgency Hint

From: Mikau <mikau_AT_aaathats3as.com>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2020 19:10:56 +0200

On Sun, 30 Aug 2020 23:43:16 +0200
Mikau <mikau_AT_aaathats3as.com> wrote:

Are there any plans of meging this patch or something along the same
lines?

The thing is, the way urgency is handled currently in tabbed is
fundamentally broken.
To quote the ICCCM:
        "The window manager will not change properties written by the
         client."
and:
        "Clients must provide some means by which the user can cause
         the UrgencyHint flag to be set to zero or the window to be
         withdrawn."

Tabbed, acting as both a kind of window manager for its clients and as
a client for the actual window manager violates both of these rules. It
unsets an urgent client's urgency hint when its tab is selected
(tabbed.c:480), therefore modifying a property only the client should
ever write to. It also never unsets the urgency hint on itself,
violating the second rule.
I was wondering why tabbed was originally written to behave like this
and I think I've found the reason in the dwm source code. Dwm also
removes a client's urgency hint if its window gets focused and since I
assume most of you use dwm it makes sense that noone realized this
behaviour violated the standard.
Received on Mon Oct 12 2020 - 19:10:56 CEST