new xwayland protocol

[William Swanson]

On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 12:01 PM, Bill Spitzak <spitzak at gmail.com> wrote:
> Both Linux and windows support text files that say something like this (we
> wrote the code that reads/writes these files):
>
>   window_position: 10,30,400,500

Your example is already deeply broken, since it doesn't consider
things like the current virtual desktop, the minimization/maximization
state, z-order, zoom level, rotation, 3D positioning, window roll-up
or a host of other issues that may or may not be relevant depending on
the current window manager / compositor.

When you really step back and think about it, why duplicate the same
position-saving code again and every app? Why not let the compositor
handle this? After all, the compositor is the one program that is
actually knows what's relevant and what is not.

A simple protocol with two messages is all you need. One message would
say, "Please save the position for this surface as
org.gimp.toolbox.blah," and the other would say, "Please restore the
position for this surface, which is saved as org.gimp.toolbox.blah."
Easy!

The best part is, the compositor knows what it is doing, and can
actually handle things correctly this way.

-William