[maemo-developers] Moving windows in Maemo

[From: Sean Luke]

On Apr 11, 2007, at 10:49 AM, Eero Tamminen wrote:

> If one wants all dialogs to be movable, one can just set suitable
> -use_dialog_mode policy option value in the matchbox-window-manager
> startup script: /etc/osso-af-init/matchbox.sh and restart the device.
> (and if you make a mistake and matchbox doesn't startup, the device
> may end up in a reboot loop, so test this first in Scratchbox!)

Thanks Eero.  But therein lies the rub.  As a developer, I'd like  
software I write to be accessible to as wide an audience as possible:  
if people can potentially brick their machines by doing what's  
necessary to install my software, that's not a reasonable  
distribution strategy.

For the moment I'm experimenting with various floating windows for  
various utility functions -- my drag-and-drop example on my N800  
website, say.  To do so I need a way around the present IMHO ill- 
considered window manager restrictions.  The only options are dialogs  
(which create lots of artifacts on moving/resizing) and, thanks to  
Kalle, popups.


> Dialogs can already e.g. position themselves on the screen how
> they want, WM centers the dialogs only if they haven't set
> co-ordinates before mapping themselves.

Sure, but...

<rant>
As for the "standard" dialogs: except for PalmOS -- which for god's  
sake I hope you're not trying to emulate -- I cannot immediately  
think of another current PDA^H^H^HInternet Tablet UI which does not  
have the option of movable or resizable windows.  Maemo's  
notification windows can't be moved, even when they're not modal and  
are blocking other GUI operations (!!!)  Even if the window manager's  
movable-windows switch *was* turned on, I'm not sure if they could  
still be moved, as they don't have decorations.  And various panels  
(fonts, saves, etc.) are not resizable even when their size is  
unneccessarily too small to be useful.  In all cases, if you moved  
them or resized these dialogs, they'd not stay put next time, because  
maemo doesn't have persistent state.
</rant>

Sean