Re: Proposal: add a _NET_WM_DESKTOP_FILE

Thomas Lübking <[email protected]> Wed, 11 Nov 2015 16:00:51 +0100
Newsgroups gmane.comp.gnome.wm-spec
Message-ID <[email protected]>
More ballsy, please. There's far too many "should" in the netwm spec anyway.
Feature is optional, correct usage is not.

On Mittwoch, 11. November 2015 13:59:41 CEST, Martin Graesslin wrote:


> client. In case it is not known to the client, it SHOULD NOT 
> set the property at all.

client. In case it is not known to the client, it MUST NOT 
set the property at all.

> In case the desktop file is not stored in a standard location, the client 
> should set _NET_WM_DESKTOP_FILE to the full path (e.g. "/opt/foo/
> org.freedesktop.foo.desktop").

In case the desktop file is not stored in a location resolved by $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications, the client MUST set _NET_WM_DESKTOP_FILE to the absolute path (e.g. "/opt/foo/org.freedesktop.foo.desktop"), ie. the string MUST  start with a slash "/".

Otherwise the client MUST set _NET_WM_DESKTOP_FILE to the 
relative base name of the  desktop entry. The string MUST NOT start with
a slash "/".
This is the file name, without the $XDG_DATA_DIRS/applications path and
without extension, of the desktop entry that represents this 
application according to the freedesktop desktop entry specification (e.g.
"org.freedesktop.foo").


> Opinions?

Since this points resolution of icons, it should ;-) be specified how the icons are resolved, ie. precedence of the XWM hint, NET_WM_ICON or the the icon found in the desktop service.
The problem is that the window icon might differ from the service (application) icon - maybe leading to inconsistent representation (if eg. 64x64 is taken from NET_WM_ICON and 512x512 from the desktop service, could be *really* nasty if the representation juggles between 128 and 130 px and you've a 128px icon from NET_WM and a 130px downscaled from the 256px icon gained from the service file)

I do not object leaving that choice to the WM, but the clients need to be aware and we should ;-) suggest resolution behavior strategies.

Cheers,
Thomas