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Marco Build Status

MATE Marco is a fork of GNOME Metacity.

COMPILING MARCO

You need GTK+ 3.22. For startup notification to work you need libstartup-notification at http://www.freedesktop.org/software/startup-notification/.

REPORTING BUGS AND SUBMITTING PATCHES

Report new bugs on https://github.com/mate-desktop/marco. Please check for duplicates, especially if you are reporting a feature request.

Please do not add "me too!" or "yes I really want this!" comments to feature requests on GitHub. Please read http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html prior to adding any kind of flame about missing features or misfeatures.

Feel free to send patches too; Marco is relatively small and simple, so if you find a bug or want to add a feature it should be pretty easy. Send me mail, or file a pull request at https://github.com/mate-desktop/marco/pulls

See the HACKING file for some notes on hacking Marco.

SHRINKING MARCO

Not that marco is huge, but a substantial amount of code is in preferences handling, in static strings that aren't essential, and in the theme engine.

You can strip about 70K from the marco binary by compiling with options such as:

--disable-sm
--disable-verbose-mode
--disable-startup-notification

However the result is no good for desktop use, all prefs have to be hardcoded in the binary, for example. If you wanted to make a really small marco, here's some additional stuff you might consider implementing:

MARCO FEATURES

HOW TO ADD EXTERNAL FEATURES

You can write a marco "plugin" such as a pager, window list, icon box, task menu, or even things like "window matching" using the Extended Window Manager Hints. See http://www.freedesktop.org for the EWMH specification. An easy-to-use library called "libwnck" is available that uses the EWMH and is specifically designed for writing WM accessories.

You might be interested in existing accessories such as "Devil's Pie" by Ross Burton, which add features to Marco (or other EWMH-compliant WMs).

MARCO BUGS, NON-FEATURES, AND CAVEATS

See github: https://github.com/mate-desktop/marco/issues

FAQ

Q: Will you add my feature?

A: If it makes sense to turn on unconditionally, or is genuinely a harmless preference that I would not be embarrassed to put in a simple, uncluttered, user-friendly configuration dialog.

If the only rationale for your feature is that other window managers have it, or that you are personally used to it, or something like that, then I will not be impressed. Marco is firmly in the "choose good defaults" camp rather than the "offer 6 equally broken ways to do it, and let the user pick one" camp.

This is part of a "no crackrock" policy, despite some exceptions I'm mildly embarrassed about. For example, multiple workspaces probably constitute crackrock, they confuse most users and really are not that useful if you have a decent tasklist and so on. But I am too used to them to turn them off. Or alternatively iconification/tasklist is crack, and workspaces/pager are good. But having both is certainly a bit wrong. Sloppy focus is probably crackrock too.

But don't think unlimited crack is OK just because I slipped up a little. No slippery slope here.

Don't let this discourage patches and fixes - I love those. ;-) Just be prepared to hear the above objections if your patch adds some crack-ridden configuration option.

http://pobox.com/~hp/free-software-ui.html http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html

Q: Why does Marco remember the workspace/position of some apps but not others across logout/login?

A: Marco only stores sizes/positions for apps that are session managed. As far as I can determine, there is no way to attempt to remember workspace/position for non-session-aware apps without causing a lot of weird effects.

The reason is that you don't know which non-SM-aware apps were launched by the session. When you initially log in, Marco sees a bunch of new windows appear. But it can't distinguish between windows that were stored in your session, or windows you just launched after logging in. If Marco tried to guess that a window was from the session, it could e.g. end up maximizing a dialog, or put a window you just launched on another desktop or in a weird place. And in fact I see a lot of bugs like this in window managers that try to handle non-session-aware apps.

However, for session-aware apps, Marco can tell that the application instance is from the session and thus restore it reliably, assuming the app properly restores the windows it had open on session save.

So the correct way to fix the situation is to make apps session-aware. libSM has come with X for years, it's very standardized, it's shared by GNOME and KDE - even twm is session-aware. So anyone who won't take a patch to add SM is more archaic than twm - and you should flame them. ;-)

Docs on session management: http://www.fifi.org/doc/xspecs/xsmp.txt.gz http://www.fifi.org/doc/xspecs/SMlib.txt.gz

See also the ICCCM section on SM. For MATE apps, use the MateClient object. For a simple example of using libSM directly, twm/session.c in the twm source code is pretty easy to understand.

Q: How about adding viewports in addition to workspaces?

A: I could conceivably be convinced to use viewports instead of workspaces, though currently I'm not thinking that. But I don't think it makes any sense to have both; it's just confusing. They are functionally equivalent.

You may think this means that you won't have certain keybindings, or something like that. This is a misconception. The only fundamental difference between viewports and workspaces is that with viewports, windows can "overlap" and appear partially on one and partially on another. All other differences that traditionally exist in other window managers are accidental - the features commonly associated with viewports can be implemented for workspaces, and vice versa.

So I don't want to have two kinds of workspace/desktop/viewport/whatever, but I'm willing to add features traditionally associated with either kind if those features make sense.

Q: Why is the panel always on top?

A: Because it's a better user interface, and until we made this not configurable a bunch of apps were not getting fixed (the app authors were just saying "put your panel on the bottom" instead of properly supporting fullscreen mode, and such).

rationales.txt has the bugzilla URL for some flamefesting on this, if you want to go back and relive the glory. Read these and the bugzilla stuff before asking/commenting: http://pobox.com/~hp/free-software-ui.html http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html

Q: Why is there no edge flipping?

A: This one is also in rationales.txt. Because "ouija board" UI, where you just move the mouse around and the computer guesses what you mean, has a lot of issues. This includes mouse focus, shade-hover mode, edge flipping, autoraise, etc. Marco has mouse focus and autoraise as a compromise, but these features are all confusing for many users, and cause problems with accessibility, fitt's law, and so on.

Read these and the bugzilla stuff before asking/commenting: http://pobox.com/~hp/free-software-ui.html http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html

Q: Why does wireframe move/resize suck?

A: You can turn it on with the reduced_resources setting.

But: it has low usability, and is a pain to implement, and there's no reason opaque move/resize should be a problem on any setup that can run a modern desktop worth a darn to begin with.

Read these and the bugzilla stuff before asking/commenting: http://pobox.com/~hp/free-software-ui.html http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html

The reason we had to add wireframe anyway was broken proprietary apps that can't handle lots of resize events.

Q: Why no XYZ?

A: You are probably getting the idea by now - check rationales.txt, query/search bugzilla, and read http://pobox.com/~hp/features.html and http://pobox.com/~hp/free-software-ui.html

Then sit down and answer the question for yourself. Is the feature good? What's the rationale for it? Answer "why" not just "why not." Justify in terms of users as a whole, not just users like yourself. How else can you solve the same problem? etc. If that leads you to a strong opinion, then please, post the rationale for discussion to an appropriate bugzilla bug, or to usability@gnome.org.

Please don't just "me too!" on bugzilla bugs, please don't think flames will get you anywhere, and please don't repeat rationale that's already been offered.

Q: Your dumb web pages you made me read talk about solving problems in fundamental ways instead of adding preferences or workarounds. What are some examples where marco has done this?

A: There are quite a few, though many opportunities remain. Sometimes the real fix involves application changes. The marco approach is that it's OK to require apps to change, though there are also plenty of workarounds in marco for battles considered too hard to fight.

Here are some examples:

Q: I think marco sucks.

A: Feel free to use any WM you like. The reason marco follows the ICCCM and EWMH specifications is that it makes marco a modular, interchangeable part in the desktop. libwnck-based apps such as the MATE window list will work just fine with any EWMH-compliant WM.

Q: Did you spend a lot of time on this?

A: Originally the answer was no. Sadly the answer is now yes.

Q: How can you claim that you are anti-crack, while still writing a window manager?

A: I have no comment on that.