[maemo-developers] Moving windows in Maemo

[From: Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

ext Sean Luke wrote:
> 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.

Do you have an URL?


> 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.

Drag and drop is initiated with stylus being pressed & moved and
it goes away when the stylus is lifted.  So an OverrideRedirect (popup)
window is OK for D&D indication (and a stylus grab is implicit when the
stulys/button is down), but Gtk should already be doing the D&D
indication for you...?


>> 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 (!!!)

Hm.  I think all the dialogs should be modal according to the UI
guidelines.


>  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.

Which windows don't have decorations?


> And various panels (fonts, saves, etc.) are not

Panels = dialogs?

> resizable even when their size is unneccessarily too small to be
> useful.  In all cases, if you moved them or resized these dialogs,

If something is unusably small and there would be more space on screen
to present that, it's definitely a bug.  Could you file this to Maemo
Bugzilla?


> they'd not stay put next time, because maemo doesn't have persistent
> state.

Could you give an example of this problem?


	- Eero