absolute positioning and other "missing features" of Wayland

[Dima Ryazanov]

Thanks everyone! This was quite a bit of interesting feedback.

Let me add Alexandros to this thread, too, in case he has any input - if
the existing hacks seem to be sufficient, or if it makes sense to create a
new protocol.

(Alexandros: I'm by no means an expert here, but saw your work on Wine, and
thought it would be useful to start a discussion. If you're not already on
the mailing list, see the full thread here:
https://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/wayland-devel/2021-February/041718.html
)

On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 9:23 AM Carsten Haitzler <raster at rasterman.com>
wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Feb 2021 12:10:08 +0100 Jonas Ådahl <jadahl at gmail.com> said:
>
> > On Mon, Feb 22, 2021 at 10:49:33AM +0000, Simon Ser wrote:
> > > On Monday, February 22nd, 2021 at 11:44 AM, Carsten Haitzler
> > > <raster at rasterman.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I also would want to avoid baking explicit absolute positioning into
> > > > wayland protocol - be it as a core agreed to add-on to xdg-shell or
> even
> > > > a "commonly supported extension". What I'd like it some better
> solution.
> > > > For example - if an app wants to absolute position a window because
> it's
> > > > doing a custom "my own notification popup" much like Chrome and
> Firefox
> > > > now like to do in X11, then I'd prefer this be explicitly exposed as
> a
> > > > "notification surface with requested screen location hints" and so
> the
> > > > compositor can decide to do something more intelligent with it. I am
> sure
> > > > this list of use cases will probably be extensive and also depend on
> the
> > > > API in wine that is being wrapped and intercepted - the higher level
> it
> > > > is, the more it knows about the intended use case.
> > >
> > > I'd like to avoid making this general, if we go down this road. Make it
> > > specific to the win32 API and wine. Wayland-native toolkits don't need
> > > it.
> >
> > Sounds potentially not horrible in theory, but is it remotely possible?
> > There are these approaches I can think of:
>
> It's still open to abuse eventually for the wrong reasons no matter where
> it
> is.
>
> >  * Add a "wl_win32" to wayland-protocols
> >
> > Adoption by anyone wanting to bypass the Wayland windowing model can use
> > it trivially, and we have a X11 like situation where everything grabs
> > everything and arbitrary client driven window self management.
> >
> >  * Make "wine" distribute a "wl_win32.xml" and make compositors depend on
> >    on wine-devel, implementing the protocol.
> >
> > Practically the same as above, just a 'cp ~/wine/protocols/wl-win32
> > protocols' away, and we're back with wierd grabs and client managing
> > their own surfaces again.
> >
> >  * A libwine-wayland, a wineBindWaylandDisplay() with some kind of half
> >    assed authentication.
> >
> > I assume noone wants this (including me). But client developers would
> > have to be really obnoxious to work around it which might be enough to
> > not make it general.
> >
> > A "allow/deny" nag/query (aka "Do you want this application you
> > installed to work or want me to break it for you?") I wouldn't call a
> > reasonable option either.
>
> I think the nag is probably the way to go. Or specifically the compositor
> should ask once and remember the response (or have an option to never ask
> and
> always allow this if users so desire).
>
> > So, how would we make it not de-facto general?
> >
> > Not to meantion the head ache of letting clients in on configuring their
> > window positions when any kind of HiDPI scaling, fractional or nat, is
> > done.
>
> Indeed this is the problem as well as odd displays like circular ones as
> well.
> It opens the doors to clients making assumptions that may not be true given
> various methods a compositor might use to handle multiple screens with
> differing DPI/scaling etc.
>
> > >
> > > Notifications popups are part of the desktop environment and clients
> > > shouldn't try to display them directly.
>
> But they do. Give them an inch and they take a mile. :)
>
> > Agreed.
> >
> >
> > Jonas
> >
>
>
> --
> ------------- Codito, ergo sum - "I code, therefore I am" --------------
> Carsten Haitzler - raster at rasterman.com
>
>
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