[Debian GNUstep maintainers] Bug#495373: Poor support for the xmonad WM; blank windows with the cairo backend

[Michal Suchanek]

On 19/08/2008, Yavor Doganov <yavor at gnu.org> wrote:
> Hi Michal,
>
>  Here is what the upstream GNUstep Back maintainer replied:
>
>  ,----
>  | The log file looks like xmonad does not reparent windows, that way
>  | GNUstep fails to compute any window border size and guesses them
>  | (wrongly of course). Most likely they should all be 0.

I have no idea what business has GNUstep with window borders. The
application draws into its window and the window location on the
screen and decorations are the business of the window manager.

>  |
>  | But this should not result in an all black (or gray, as the original
>  | report states) window, rather I would expect some black borders.
>  |
>  | Do you know of any way to find out about the selected window borders
>  | with xmonad?  That is about the only thing I could think of doing in
>  | relation to this bug report. You state yourself that the original
>  | problem is not reproducable for you.
>  `----
>
>  Do you have any clues about that?  I took a quick look at the source
>  code, but it's all Haskell...

Just set the offsets to 0 when the windows are not reparented, and if
somebody complains they can get the them calculated properly. With
typical configuration you would be at most one pixel off even if the
value was actually useful for something.

>
>  It appears that the grey windows you get with cairo are unrelated to
>  this problem.  Can you try a GNUstep app with the cairo backend under
>  a different WM (such as wmaker or anything else that is convenient for
>  you to install)?  Thanks.
>

I do have wmaker installed because I use wmsetbg. The problem is the
same with AClock running under wmaker except it does not complain
about offsets.

Thanks

Michal