[wmii] Re: Dockapp problem

garbeam_AT_wmii.de said:
> No the difference is, that they draw their content on their own. wmii
> has nothing todo with them. wmii shold only place them in a way which
> seems adequate. And this can only be a vertical bar on the right side,
> which gets opened automatically whenever such a broken app appears.

I've been watching this thread with some interest. I've been using ion3
since it was released, and I only recently discovered wmii. Yesterday I
tried out the welcome tours of both wmii-2 and wmii-3, and I must say
I'm really impressed.

The only reason I didn't switch immediately is the (lack of) handling
wm-style dockapps. I think your suggestion of putting dockapps in a
vertical bar on the right is a good one.

Another way to handle this is what ion3 does using what it calls an
"embedded dock". In fact, this is one of the few places where ion3 does
dynamic window management the way wmii does everywhere. If a dock is
placed along one edge of the screen, the longer dimension is aware of
any splits, and only takes up as much space as is needed.

Here's a snapshot of my desktop for example:
http://gehennom.net/~lunz/embedded_dock.png

Notice how the dock area is limited, and the terminal gets full screen
height.

I think this would translate quite well to wmii-3's column layout. A
dock could be like any other client in a column, except with "gravity"
that would keep it fixed at the bottom (or top), and it would have a
fixed height. One might also choose to keep it visible even in the
"maximum" and "stacked" layouts, I don't know.

Notice also how I've got the gnome panel captured in the dock -- making
this possible would neatly sidestep any need for wmii to handle these
gnome/kde applets directly. Instead, users wanting those toys can just
run their desktop's "panel" app, and let it worry about all the details.
For this to work, though, it's fairly important that horizontal docks be
permitted, since many applets use text and there isn't enough horizontal
space in a vertical panel for it.

Jason
Received on Mon May 22 2006 - 00:25:04 UTC