Re: [rox-devel] OroboROX Window Manager and ROX-Session

[Guido S. <gu...@ar...>]

Am 25.03.2004 23:32:53 schrieb(en) Jonatan Liljedahl:
> On Thu, 25 Mar 2004 12:16:56 +0200
> Guido Schimmels <gu...@ar...> wrote:
>=20
> > Please try OroboROX and tell me what you think!
> >  It would give us the chance to offer a complete package like Gnome
> >  and  Xfce do. Or inform me if you don't have such ambitions!
>=20
> How is it supposed to be started by ROX-Session?
> (Entering the full path to the AppRun script in the WM combobox =20
> works,
> but it's kind of ugly...) ROX-Session should handle AppDirs and DnD =20
> to
> choose WM, and maybe a button to open your favorite editor on the =20
> file
> that lists the WM's shown in the combobox...

Yes, because I didn't know how to handle that, I haven't cross-posted =20
to rox-users. I wanted to sort this out with more knowledgable users =20
first.
What I've done is putting a script in the PATH similar to the rox =20
script. You'll find "oroborox.in" in the src dir:

#!/bin/sh

exec @PREFIX@/OroboROX/AppRun "$@"

@PREFIX@ is meant to be replaced with the install prefix by a install =20
script. That's the easiest solution. But as you said, ROX-Session =20
supporting AppDirs natively would be more elegant.

> What are the plans on making the options available in a GUI?

Will come, definitely. But before I can create a sensible user =20
interface, I need to know a few things about the future direction of =20
the ROX Desktop. What kind of integration of the components do we want =20
and do we want it at all? The whole point of OroboROX is having a =20
window manager whose development we control, so that it has precisely =20
the feature set that complements ROX-Filer and ROX-Session.

You often hear Linux users say confused sentences like:
"I prefer more light-weight window managers than KDE or Gnome."

The above sentence doesn't make sense. But the confusion is =20
understandable as "single-binary desktop environments" / "but the =20
kitchen sink window managers" certainly exist.

Our chance with the ROX-Filer/ROX-Session/OroboROX triade is, that we =20
can implement features at the level where they make technically the =20
most sense. Both with regards to the backend and frontend. With the =20
frontend I mean the preferences tools. The big question here is, if we =20
stick with the current system where configuration is closely tied to =20
the components. I think this is not the best thing for usability. User =20
interfaces should follow the semantics of the visual interface, not the =20
way things are implemented under the hood.

I envision a structure like the following:

- Language options
- Theme selection
. Workspace options
- Window Focus
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Session management
- Mouse settings
- Keyboard settings
- Pinboard options
- Panel options
...

Each item would be a self-contained appdir.

> Is it possible to make it avoid the taskbar when placing windows and
> maximizing windows?

I don't understand. What taskbar do you mean? In case you are using a =20
taskbar which doesn't follow established standards (EWMH) - and I don't =20
see why else this would happen - you are out of luck. I won't implement =20
work-arounds for legacy apps. File a bug-report for the taskbar.

> And I'd like a restart-key so I don't have to kill it and restart it
> everytime I want to make it reread ~/.config/OroboROX/oroboroxrc...

Yes, that's anoying.
At least you can use Ctrl+Alt+q to quit OroboROX after which ROX-=20
Session will offer to restart it. But that's not nice. Will be =20
improved.

> BTW, what's this ~/.config stuff? Is it standard? Why not ~/Choices/
> as
> all other ROX apps??

I've explained this in another post. If your CHOICESPATH is set, it =20
will be used instead of the default. ~/.config is only the last resort, =20
when neither CHOICESPATH nor XDG_CONFIG_HOME are set.
For ROX I propose that ~/.config/ be a symlink to ~/Choices/. Then not =20
much can go wrong when apps transition to XDG.