GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 557816
GIMP Utility windows under compiz
Last modified: 2008-10-25 14:30:04 UTC
Please describe the problem: Utility windows produce task bar items using compiz, but not in metacity. Steps to reproduce: 1. Enable utility windows in GIMP 2. Enable desktop effects 3. Restart GIMP Actual results: Utility windows get their own task bar items Expected results: Utility windows should not get their own task bar items Does this happen every time? yes Other information: Filed a bug for utility window behaviour for Fedora rawhide. The rendering of the windows was fixed, but the task bar issue was not sighting skip_taskbar hint not being set by GIMP. https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=466622
Hi! We can't set skip_taskbar because in window managers that supports skip_taskbar but not Utility window you are quite likely to end up in a situation where the toolbox and dock are completely hidden behind the image window. Since they are not shown in the taskbar, there is nothing that hints "you have more windows than the image window on your desktop" which obviously is confusing. Also, there's a comment in the redhat bug report: "GIMP expects that utility windows will not show up in the taskbar, which is wrong." What specification says that it is wrong?
(In reply to comment #1) > > What specification says that it is wrong? > Let me correct this, nothing guarantees that the wm will set skip_taskbar for utility windows, so its wrong to assume that they will not show up in the taskbar. (afaik only metacity does this).
Window managers are of course free to interpret the Utility window hint as they wish (as long as it is within the scope of the relevant specifications), but don't you agree that the interpretation metacity (and the Windows backend for GTK+ since a couple of weeks back) does is reasonable? Why should Utility windows be shown in the taskbar?
I agree with Martin here. We can't set skip-taskbar for the reasons given in comment #1. In my interpretation of a utility window, it should not have a taskbar item, so that should be a side-effect of setting the utility window hint. Of course if a window manager wants to interpret this differently, it is free to do that. The GIMP user experience will suffer from that though.
(In reply to comment #4) > I agree with Martin here. We can't set skip-taskbar for the reasons given in > comment #1. In my interpretation of a utility window, it should not have a > taskbar item, so that should be a side-effect of setting the utility window > hint. In that case, Gimp should set skip_taskbar because it obviously is the window behaviour you intend. If a WM doesn't handle Utility as a group transient (such as Compiz until recently), the best idea probably would be to file a bug against the WM (and configure Gimp to use Normal as type for the windows). If we assume that skip_taskbar should be a side-effect of Utility window type, it would even make a lot of sense if the taskbar did that assumption.