Re: RFE: non-full screen window list

On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Matthew Allum wrote:

>Hi;
>
>on Thu, Dec 18, 2003 at 10:46:35AM -0800, Rob Spearman wrote:
>> It would be a lot easier if matchbox could take a configuration list of
>> window names (initial substring to match) that should be centered in their
>> natural size.
>> 
>
>I understand your annoyance, but Im not 100% convinced this is a reliable
>solution, my reasoning;
>
> - It requires you to know the window name before hand;
>   - Its not always possible to know this - what if the program uses
>     the name of the opened file as window title ?
>   - What if the window name is localised ?

It would still be better than nothing.

>
>   ( we could use the WM_CLASS hint instead of name but I think this
>     would have another set of problems .. )
> 
> - In the case of Xine what if you have a high res video file thats
>   better suited noted a dialog window ? How would you distinguish
>   between that and a low res video just on window name ?

I actually need to always center the video on screen.  My application is a
bit odd in that only the central portion of the display is visible to
users, hence my need for centering things at less than full-screen.

>
> - Its another confusing command line option - things should just work ;-)
>
>
>A better solution maybe to write some kind of launcher that alters the
>launched app window type, though Im not sure how this would work as to
>be reliable and/or portable across different OS's ( Im thinking
>LD_PRELOAD evil here :/ ). 
>
>> It's just too much to expect to be able to modify an application to get 
>> this behavior, since they aren't actual dialog windows in the first place.
>> 
>
>I dont see why it is too much to expect 'broken' applications to fix
>themselves ( its a 2 line patch ). If a window is a dialog it should
>advertise the fact!
>
>Also If a window truly isn't a dialog then why should Matchbox treat
>it as one ?
>
>> Example applications are: xine (with low resolution video), 
>
>I dont know how valid xine issue is. Xine should scale up / correctly
>center if it doesn't get the window size its requests. This is a bug,
>Im sure it would be easy to fix - maybe worth reporting to xine-ui
>people ?

I put in an RFE for xine.  I found a workaround option, but it has
performance issues.

>
>> Xdialog (The
>> author considers it an application, not a dialog)
>>
>
>I think the author is smoking crack - it seems 'XDialog' is a very
>misleading name.
>
>Mostly what he says is wrong - for example what standard says that
>transient windows cant be resized, closed etc ? Also using the more
>modern EWMH dialog hint doesn't even require any transient hints
>something he doesn't seem to grasp. It would be nice if he just added
>a switch to set this property.
>
>If you point me at the source of XDialog your using, I'll patch it and
>send it to you and him - maybe I can figure something out with him.

That would be a big help!

http://xdialog.dyns.net/

> 
>> Everything else works great for me.
>> 
>
>Cool, hope I havn't sounded too aggressive ;-)
>
>Many thanks
>
>  -- Matthew
>