Re: new hint for EWMH

ext Lubos Lunak wrote:
> On Monday 30 of July 2007, Tapani Pälli wrote:
>   
>> Hello,
>> I would like to suggest a new hint '_NET_INPUT_AREAS' for EWMH to be
>> used by window managers and toolkits. This hint would be a list of
>> rectangles representing bounding boxes of the input methods on the screen.
>> This allows a toolkit to place it's temporary windows (that might have
>> input-entries) like popup-menu's so that they won't cover input-method
>> areas and user can interact with those windows.
>>
>> I have suggested to have this patch for Matchbox window manager :
>> http://bugzilla.openedhand.com/show_bug.cgi?id=333
>>     
>
>  I'm not sure I understand the purpose of the hint correctly - why not simply 
> add a new window type for these windows? Could you post a description for the 
> hint as it should be included in the spec?
>   

New Window type is fine for WM but a list of rectangles is much better
toolkit-wise. Without this hint toolkit would need to go through whole
window tree and pick input-method windows and then make collision
detection logic. This is much heavier that having coordinates from the
start. Description below :

---------- 8< -------------------------------------------------------

Section : Root Window Properties (and Related Messages)

...

_NET_INPUT_AREAS

_NET_INPUT_AREAS CARDINAL[]/32

This array contains a list of input-method areas. Toolkit and
Applications can use this information to place their input-entry windows
so that they won't overlap input-methods. Property is set and updated by
the Window Manager.

// Tapani