Re: new command: raise

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

I have done a little bit of research into the X11 protocols,
and here is what I have found.

The X11 standard strongly discourages client programs from
trying to control window placement or position in the stack
(i.e. raise/lower) except by making a request of the window=20
manager.  Basically this means that if you can't do what you
want in the window manager, then you can't do it from the=20
application program either.  The application can set a
"please raise me" attribute for a window, but the window
manager decides whether or not to pay any attention to this.

I think the bottom line is that gnuplot_x11 is free to mark
all its windows as belonging to the same "window_group"
if it wants to, but whether this has the effect that Petr wants
(raise them all at once) will depend entirely on the window
manager.

Let me quote from a couple of relevant sections from
Scheifler & Gettys "X Window System" reference manual.

<begin quote>
4.1.5 Configuring the Window
[...]
=09Convention
Clients that use a ConfigureWindow request to request a change
in their position in the stack should do so using None in the sibling
field. [...] Doing this is deprecated, and window managers are in any
case free to position windows in the stack as they see fit.
<end quote>=20


<begin quote>
4.1.11 Window Groups
A set of top-level windows that should be treated from the
user's point of view as related (even though they may belong
to a number of clients) should be linked together using the
window_group field of the WM_HINTS structure. [...]
It is up to the window manager to determine the policy for
treating the windows in a group. At present, there is no way
for a client to request a group, as opposed to an individual,
operation.
<end quote>

--=20
Ethan A Merritt       merritt@u.washington.edu
Biomolecular Structure Center Box 357742
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195