Re: GNUstep and compositing?

[Fred Kiefer]

Germán Arias schrieb:
> My point is that an end user (a boy, a teacher, ...) should not be
> confronted with the problem of how to handle the appIcons and
> miniWindows on his desktop (Gnome, KDE, xfce, ...) and much less having
> to learn about another application (GWorkspace, although I'm sure this
> can not handle AppIcons and MiniWindows). If GNUstep provides GSTaskBar,
> then the user only needs to adjust GSUseGSTaskBar = YES, and that's all.
> And if he want, he can configure it (and of course this is much easier
> than learn to use GWorkspace). To default the GSTaskBar can put the
> icons and miniwindows at the left some pixels above of the lower left
> corner (maybe 100 or 150), and added the new icons to the upwards. With
> this position there isn't problem on gnome, and kde, and in many others
> desktops. And with a size of 32x32 or 24x24, in this way people with a
> resolution of 1024x768 will have small icons. But of course, he can
> change this. 
> 
> How work it? Easy
> 
> This requires a tool called GSTB registered with GSTaskBar name, this
> tool only have three methods 
> 
> - (NSArray *)setWindow: (NSWindow *)aWindow;
> - (void)removeWindow: (NSWindow *)aWindow;
> - (NSNumber *)getSizeWindow;
> 
> the first method provide on an array the X and Y coordinates of the
> lower left corner of an icon and the size. Then when NSApplication make
> the AppIcon (and GSUseGSTaskBar is YES) this ask for the data at
> GSTaskBar process. And when the NSAplication is terminated call the
> method removeWindow: to release the position in the taskbar. And the
> same on NSWindow when minimize or deminimize a window. Of course there
> are changes on NSAppIconView and NSMiniWindowView to change the size of
> the images. But I suppose that this is more easy to do with a variable
> call _iconSize instead are calling [GSCurrentServer() iconSize] or
> GSTaskBar process each time, with this only two methods needs changes. I
> don't know how much generic is this way. I will send you a patch if you
> want see how I implement this. And I file with the tool. (I have this
> now but with an horrible style) 

I think, I understand now. Your new tool is not managing the position of
app icons itself. This is left to the applications themselves. What your
tool does is to provide a position and size for this icon to the
application. When starting up the application asks for this information
and then positions it icon accordingly.
This seems quite nice as it isn't intrusive and should be easy to
implement via DO. What I don't get is the interface you are proposing
for these methods. Why don't you use NSRect and NSSize here?
Also there seems to be the issue of an application stopping before
unregistering it's windows. How will that be handled?