Re: Was: [RP] Patch for frames et al...

[Jonathan Walther]

On Wed, Nov 14, 2001 at 06:02:05PM -0600, Mike Meyer wrote:
> I'm not sure I understand that last one. How does RP help remove the
> burden of managing windows? Maybe there's a paper on the philosophy
> that I've missed.

No ``paper''.  You just missed the IRC and beer sessions where this was
hashed out.

For instance, the fact that all windows start out maximized, and that
you can't ``manage'' them by resizing them and moving them... that is
the computer doing the work FOR you.  Its nice not to have to think
about the extra crap.

> Let me clarify: it should be possible to do "incredibly complicated
> things" so long as doing them doesn't add noticable fat anywhere else.

Come help us do the Common Lisp version.  Codewise its going to be even
more stripped down than the current ratpoison.  But as a user, you'll be
able to have it intern your own functions for various things.  The
ultimate in customizability.  You don't like something?  Redefine the
relevant hook functions in your .rc file.  Or redefine 'em on the fly...

> Your assumption is wrong. The "incredibly complicated things" could
> involve nothing more than xterms. It's not quite that simple, but all
> the tasks at hand could be done in xterms instead of the tools I'm
> using - just not as well - without changing the things I want to do.

What do you not want to do in xterms?  Concrete examples would help.

> > Depends how you look at it.  The way I see it, it does one thing,
> > namely it goes to the window you select.  You can take two paths to
> > get there, but that isn't exactly the same as saying it does two
> > different things.
> 
> To quote Tom Lehrer: "When correctly viewed, everything is lewd".

No, Ryan is right.  Why don't you try the following behavior?

When someone "goes" to a window, there are three possibilities:
  a) Raise that window in the current frame.
  b) If the window is already raised in a different frame, switch focus
     to that frame.
  c) Raise the unraised window in the last frame it was raised in, and
     switch focus to that frame.

Doesn't sound hard to me.  Doesn't require modifications to "select",
or giving names and numbers to frames.

To get that behavior all thats really needed is an "affine" command to
tell the wm "when you raise the window, do it in *its* current frame",
instead of in the current frame.  Simple to code, simple to use.

> > All of these discussions really lead us to the point where we have to
> > say: we need a highly customizable (programmable) WM.
> 
> All open source window managers are highly customizable; it's just
> that cc is a clumsy customization tool. Is that why there's interest
> in a LISP version?

You hit the nail right on the head.  Help me figure out how to get
Eclipse working, and we can move forward.

Jonathan

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