How can a client identify the window manager version?

[Jim Gettys]

The danger Carsten points out is very real: we'd end up with code that
says "if this window manager, then do the following" (which might not
even be true in the next version of that window manager), rather than
code that says "if this window manager feature is present, then do the
following", which isn't brittle against different window managers and/or
versions of window managers, and the application can have a chance to
continue to work into the future.
				Regards,
					- Jim


On Wed, 2005-11-02 at 22:11 +0900, Carsten Haitzler wrote:
> On Wed, 02 Nov 2005 13:08:46 +0100 Xavier Bestel <xavier.bestel at free.fr>
> babbled:
> 
> > Markus Kuhn wrote:
> > >   - adapting client behaviour to particular window managers (e.g.,
> > > differently phrased help messages or graphical instructions)
> > 
> > IMHO this is a slippery slope which will introduce dangerous behaviors $(D+"
> > la java: having an app reacting differently depending on the WM causes
> > subtles and hard-to-debug problems, and is fragile at best (what do you
> > do for configurable WMs like sawfish, for unknown WMs, for newer
> > versions with different behavior ?).
> 
> indeed. a ver slippery slope. java does this and has proven to be royally bad
> at it. it detects some wm's then completely ignores everythng else and does a
> absolute worst job at it. even the wm's it special cases are liable to change -
> if java is doing workarounds.
> 
> basically if you have issues with particular wm's please bring them up with the
> wm authors. most are open to discussion and fi you've found a bug will be more
> than glad to fix it. always try make a generic solution instead of a "specific
> per wm" one :)
> 
>