Re: [wmii] Re: Dockapp problem

On Sun, May 21, 2006 at 09:48:44PM +0000, Jason Lunz wrote:
> 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.

Hmmm, I come to the conclusion that the only way to go is to
provide a client (which is no separate process, but like a
client window) which takes those dockapps and orders them in a
grid layout. Apps like gkrellm won't fit into this, but I don't
care, those can be made floating. Such an internal client could
also be tagged (though kill client won't have effect). Then you
can place it where you want... Is this a good idea?

(Which means having a vertical dockbar is not planned anymore).

Regards,

-- 
 Anselm R. Garbe  ><><  www.ebrag.de  ><><  GPG key: 0D73F361