Ideal screen rotation

[Carsten Haitzler (The Rasterman)]

On Sat, 7 Nov 2009 08:33:35 +0000 Neil Jerram <neiljerram at googlemail.com> said:

> 2009/11/7 Carsten Haitzler <raster at rasterman.com>:
> >
> > no. the proper way is to set properties on your window.
> 
> How exactly does that (setting a property) happen though?  Is it

how does setting the title? or the min/max size of the window happen? the name
and class, window role, if its a dialog, transient for which window, if the app
would like it to be borderless... all of these are properties. try "xprop" and
clikc on a window. any window (freerunner or desktop - doesn't matter). THOSE
are properties. you can add/create/define any properties you like. they hang
onto the window until they are modified or deleted or the window is deleted.

> something that the app would normally do in its own startup code?  (I

yes. see above. apps are doing it all the time. it's about the most standard
way to provide information about your window, from title to minimum and maximum
size to aspect ratios and more. rotation preferences are just yet more
properties like this. if its a "property" of the window - put it as a property
of the window. use the mechanism created for precisely this kind of thing. dbus
is not that mechanism.

> presume yes.)  For apps that don't already do this - and which we'd
> ideally like to support without having to modify them all - is there a
> way that a proxy could do it for them?

if an app has rotation preferences, it should set them. if it has none - it
gets whatever the screen has right now - or whatever the wm chooses to
implement as policy. yes - you modify apps to have them indicate their
preferences. otherwise they are deemed to "not care" which is the case now, for
example. you modify the apps - thats the right way to do it. you don't
post-mortem find a way to hack things in. :)

> Also do you know if there's already a well-known window property for
> preferred rotation, or would we be inventing a new one?

you'd be inventing it.

-- 
------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
The Rasterman (Carsten Haitzler)    raster at rasterman.com