Subject: FVWM: TitleIcons, mini-icons, and general icon questions

From: Brady Montz <[email-masked]>
Date: 03 Sep 1996 16:14:14 -0700

I know that this has all been argued about before, but I'd like to bring it up
again. Sorry.

I am toying with adding a feature to FvwmIconMan where it would display 
miniature icons for each managed window, like the TaskBar does in fvwm95. 
The fvwm95 method, for those unfamiliar with it (as I was until last night)
is that there is a TitleIcon style option which specifies the mini icon used
in the titlebar (also perhaps cool. I think somebody submitted a patch to do
this for fvwm2?) and then fvwm passes this pixmap to any interested modules
which then do whatever. It seems to actually pass the pixmap and mask, not
just a filename, by the way.

I think that the main discussion about mini icons before came in the context
of sticking them in menus, ie, if you have a menu which lists a bunch of
programs to run, it would be nice to not have to specify by hand each icon.

So, here's my list of questions:

1. Exactly how does FvwmIconBox figure out which icons to display? I haven't
   done too much to figure this out, so feel free to just not answer me if
   it's obvious. But, I haven't been able to get it to use a particular icon
   for an xterm window. I tried using the *FvwmIconBox option to specify it
   directly, and also used Style to set the xterm icon to see if FvwmIconBox
   could magically figure it out. Neither works (using 2.0.43).

2. Is there any way to specify an icon for a window, without having that
   icon actually getting shown when a window gets iconified? If I use the
   Icon style to set an icon, then I get icons (which while obvious, is
   not what I want). I just want to be able to have FvwmIconMan get the
   icon without having to parse the .fvwm2rc file.

3. Is there any need for being able to specify both a big icon and a mini
   icon for a window? It seems clear that it could be potentially nice, but
   could also be work for little gain. Especially since I believe that we
   are about to run out of bits for Style options.

-- 
 Brady Montz
 [email-masked]
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---

From: Patrice Fortier <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 4 Sep 1996 10:23:02 +0200 (MET DST)

> miniature icons for each managed window, like the TaskBar does in fvwm95. 

As far as I know this is not possible with fvwm2.

> programs to run, it would be nice to not have to specify by hand each icon.

hmmm, a 'TinyIcon' Style could be used by a lot of features:
modules like FvwmWindowList, FvwmIconMan...
fvwm main code: Replace the '%my_pixmap.xpm%entry' in the menu
entries...
Anyway, I doubt that an official version will have this feature before
2.1.0. But, if someone made a patch...

Lokh.

---

From: Torgeir Veimo <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 12:05:11 +0200

[This is not a direct response to the original message, but rather some
ideas that I have been working with for some days. I finally got to
write them down.]

Take a look at
http://www.hp.com:80/xwindow/viaFrames/windowmgrs/cde.html, especially
"The CDE Action and Data Typing Service". It is possible to use this
scheme not only to specify icons for applications, but also for data
objects. It is also possible to bind together data types and the actions
to perform on them, sort of a advanced .mailcap definition database. 

I'm not saying that the current method of specifying application bound
icons in fvwm should be trashed, but rather that if fvwm moves into the
domain of desktop manager, it would _need_ an action and data typing
service. I'm not shure, but I believe that someone from the fvwm95 team
are working on a ms explorer lookalike. Would it be rude to ask for a
status brief? :)

I see many possible extensions to fvwm. What I would have done myself
(if time had permitted me to do so) would be to implement a menybar
system that an application could ask for and specify the structure of
through a corba/fresco like protocol. Much of the code is already there
in fvwm. It would also be possible to support NeXT and Mac like menus
since the application would only specify the menu structure, not what it
look like and where should be displayed (on top of the application
window would be the default).

In the same manner could an application ask for that stylish diagonal
resize handle at the lower right that Win95 has, if people like that
kind of decoration.

-- 
Torgeir Veimo, 

email: [email-masked], pager: 96 78 31 62, phone: +47 55 57 43 42

---

From: Don Mahurin <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 04 Sep 1996 06:16:57 -0400

> modules like FvwmWindowList, FvwmIconMan...

FvwmWindowList has the MiniIcons in Fvwm95, and other features I added.
If there was a patch for MiniIcons in Fvwm2, I could easily addapt the
code. Is there such a patch?

Don Mahurin
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (Emilio Lopes)
Date: Fri, 06 Sep 1996 11:47 -0500 (EST)

>>>>> "PF" == Patrice Fortier <[email-masked]> wrote:

PF> hmmm, a 'TinyIcon' Style could be used by a lot of features:
PF> modules like FvwmWindowList, FvwmIconMan...
PF> ...

Another idea: if no "TinyIcon" style is provided the modules could use
mini.ICON as default, where "ICON" is the icon specified with the
"Icon" style.

Ciao, Emilio.

-- 
                 Emilio C. Lopes <mailto:[email-masked]>
               Instituto de Fisica da Universidade de Sao Paulo
             Caixa Postal 66318, 05389-970 Sao Paulo - SP, BRAZIL
              Phone: (+55) (11) 818-6724 (Voice) / 818-6715 (Fax)
--
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