Re: Reasons for a GStep windowmanager

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On Saturday, January 6, 2001, at 06:37 PM, Philippe C.D.Robert wrote:

> it provides the unique feel of NEXTSTEP. WindowMaker isn't IMHO of great use 
> for that w/o 
> major changes and additions.

But certainly no more changes/additions than would be required for any other wm.

> The argument that one can disable a lot of functions (clip, 
> dock etc.) is a no-go to me, since the default RPMs found and used in most 
> distros are not 
> compiled like that and never will be.

Should be easy enough to make them runtime rather than compile time options and 
have
them automatically de-activated on systems where GNUstep equivalents are 
available.

The actual design/architecture of Window Maker is IMO pretty good for a C-based
application.  While as a GNUstep/ObjC programmer I think there are some fairly 
obvious
ways elements of the code and modularity could be improved easily using OO 
design
and things like bundles, the code is in pretty good shape, and the mere 
existence
of things like the dock in Window Maker has not compromised the program as a 
whole.

At least with Window Maker the basic look is right, an initial userbase is 
there,
and there is a willingness by the maintainers of the project to incorporate 
changes
needed by GNUstep (even if they aren't going to code them themselves).