Re: new command: raise

[Petr M. <mi...@ph...>]

> > Look this way: Origin and similar graph apps have a common "desktop" for
> > all windows, so raising Origin will raise its desktop with all windows.
>
> I see.  If you want this kind of behaviour from gnuplot under X11, then
> I think what you really want is not a new command-line option but instead
> a new "master window" of some sort that has an associated X-event
> handler for expose+focus events.  When this window is raised, then the
> event handler would go through the list of all other gnuplot-associated
> windows and raise them too.  You could, for example, make this master
> window a small always-on-top icon, and click on it to pop up all the others.
> That should be possible, I think;  x11.trm would spawn off this extra
> process at the same time it spawns the first instance of gnuplot_x11.

I think my "raise" command is much easier than this new proposal.


> To be honest, I dislike like that behaviour of programs whether
> under MSWin or under X.  The application program almost never knows
> better than I do as to which windows I would like to have on top.
> But it does seem to be common.

Like the flamewar of StarOffice with single or no common desktop.

> > Most graphical apps have "Tile" and "Cascade" functions.
> ??  Sorry, I am not familiar with these.  What do these do?

Wow, you have really not seen this? Even in old brave DOS Turbo Vision
environments, Win 3.1 and anywhere else?
  It tiles or cascades all open windows... so changes their size and
position to fit on the desktop.


***

This discussion takes us to new dimensions of gnuplot -- and the end of year
is almost here ...  thus I would propose the following:

- add this command "raise" as I proposed, with a simple X11 implementation
as proposed

- release gnuplot 3.8k next week, and gnuplot 4.0 in January

- do all these nice interactive terminal changes afterwards, with enough
time for discussions


What do you think about this?

---
Petr Mikulik