Application window geometry specifier

[Igor Korot]

Hi,

On Wed, Jan 13, 2021 at 7:12 PM Python <python at bladeshadow.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Jan 12, 2021 at 06:43:39PM -0000, Grant Edwards wrote:
> > And those X11 users will swear at you if you override their window
> > managers configured window placement. Application code should not care
> > about or try to control window geometry. Period.
>
> I think this is just plain wrong.  If you, the user, want to override
> what you, the user, configured your window manager to do, for WHATEVER
> reason your little heart may desire, then the application needs to
> give you an interface to request it, and rather importantly the WM must
> necessarily honor it.
>
> The policy reallly ought to be:
>
>  - If the user took the time to specify a geometry, do what it says
>    (i.e. honor the placement the application asks for)
>  - If not but the window manager has something configured for that
>     application/widget/whatever, do what it says
>  - Otherwise, resort to the window manager's default policy
>
> Arguably there ought to also be a way for the application to *suggest*
> a default geometry that the WM can override, but obviously providing a
> way to force the geometry gives rise to the opportunity for abuse by
> badly behaved developers.  Don't use those apps.
>
> Fortunately, at least historically, in practice most X11 window
> managers more or less did all that anyway.  I recall that when I
> switched to Gnome I had some trouble with this (as in, it just didn't
> work, generally, even if the relevant app allowed you to specify
> --geometry or similar), but AFAICT Gnome has long held to the notion
> that Gnome Gnows better than you do how you should run your apps, so
> when using Gnome all bets are off.

Well, I am running GNOME 3 on top of X11. I didn't preselect or configure
any windows positioning in there.
My application that I'm developing will be connecting to the database to
pull some data. When I tried to connect to Sybase ASE with their own ODBC driver
the dialog that asks for credentials shows up in the center of the screen.
And this is the position where (and I hope 99.99% of people) expect it
to show up.
Hopefully this number (99.99%) does include Mr. Angelico,.

But my application is maximized right now, so maybe it is centered on
the main frame.

Anyway that dialog (TLW) is centered.

Thank you.


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