[KWin Quest. - Update] - KWin authorize external docks to manipulate tasks and windows

[Martin Gräßlin]

Am 2017-04-21 15:05, schrieb Michail Vourlakos:
> Following the previous discussion concerning this topic:
> 
> https://www.mail-archive.com/plasma-devel@kde.org/msg62432.html
> 
> https://www.reddit.com/r/kde/comments/668yul/common_developer_forum_for_docks_wayland_case/?st=j1ru5ogg&sh=5771f221
> 
> 
> Based on the latest information, external docks can use the same
> interface plasmashell does in order to achieve this goal. But based on
> the discussions I am not persuaded that all the people involved have
> something concrete and specific for the future. Investing time and
> commitment in something that will die soon in the future is not the
> best way to proceed in my opinion.
> 
> What as a Latte developer would like to know is if this is considered
> a feasible use case for the plasma wayland branch and how the plasma
> community would like to handle it.

As I have said before I don't give any guarantees on whether the 
interfaces
which could be used currently, will be available to 3rd party in the 
future.

Like David said we don't have a concrete plan for that and due to that 
you
won't get any specific answer. I don't want to be responsible if it 
breaks so
I tell you "it might break, no guarantee".

There is one thing which I can guarantee: you won't get any Latte dock
specific changes into KWin. When you still based your work on Plasma and 
Plasma
devs would have said "yeah, that makes sense" adjustments to the 
handling would
have been possible. But the protocol we have is designed only for the 
use cases
of Plasma. This is reflected in the naming of the interfaces calling 
them
PlasmaShellSurface and PlasmaWindowManagement. Anything that is not 
going to be
used by Plasma won't have a chance to be added to those protocols.

If there were cross-desktop specific dock protocols we could talk about 
adding
support for it. But I would be very reluctant. I don't want the 
cross-desktop
dock mess we have on X11. On X11 all docks which are "cross-desktop" are 
broken or
are breaking the desktop environment they are running in. None uses 
KWin's screen
edge auto-hide handling, none uses activities, etc. etc. In many cases 
they are
affectively and knowingly breaking window managers. This is something I 
don't want
to see on Wayland. I don't think that it is possible to have cross 
desktop docks, be
it X11 or Wayland. Doesn't matter. The DEs are too different to make it 
work.

You have the choice of having a spec which is so vague that all desktops 
are covered
or one which is too limiting by using the least common denominator. 
NETWM which is used
by X11 is the first case and thus it cannot work. One way for virtual 
desktops? No, there
are two! And now docks start to break.

So this is really not a Wayland thing as you are putting it on your 
reddit thread.
It's just that those working on Wayland now have the chance to fix the 
mess the
people 25 years ago created.

Also I doubt that there will ever be a cross desktop Dock protocol. I 
don't think
any DE which develops a Wayland compositor is interested in a cross 
desktop
Dock protocol.

As should be obvious: this is my personal opinion and does not reflect 
the opinion
of Plasma or KDE.

Cheers
Martin