Re: GNUstep Window Manager (was RE: Idea)

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

Arguments for/against a simple ObjC GNUstep-based window manager ...

It would be lightweight and would do exactly what GNUstep apps need.
It would not be good for non-GNUstep apps.

In my opinion, until we have a load of great GNUstep applications,
such that we could reasonably expect users to be working in a pure
GNUstep world, there is not much point in writing a GNUstep window manager.

Technically, the only course of action that is likely to produce any
tangible benefit for GNUstep in the short/medium term is to take Window Maker
and improve its interoperation with GNUstep...

1. fix the Window Maker bug that leaves the system without any window having
keyboard focus when most GNUstep (and some non-GNUstep) apps terminate.

2. fix nice interoperation for icon miniwindow placement and appicon miniwindow
placement ... probably quite a lot of work in both Window Maker and xgps/xdps

3. make disabling of things like builtin dock automatic when a GNUstep app
is present to do the job.

4. add some sort of messaging system so that Window Maker can tell a GNUstep
workspace app about the activity of plain X applications - this would allow
the activation of a plain X application to cause the deactivation of a GNUstep
application.


I wouldn't try to alter Window Maker to use objective-c (much as I like the
language) - but it might be worth updating it to use the GNUstep makefiles
package so that it's easy to add modules written in objc and using the
GNustep libraries.