[openbox] Yet another question...

[Marc Wilson]

On Fri, Apr 16, 2004 at 12:29:55PM +0200, Tom wrote:
> Now when I started XChat two minutes ago, it told me "Unable to set 
> transparent background. You may be using a non-compliant window manager 
> that is not currently supported."

Xchat says this because it's a lame-ass application that expects to find
certain atoms on the root window, and when it doesn't, it whines about it
while blaming anyone other than itself. :)

In specific... there are two ways you can set the root pixmap.  You can
just stomp on it, or you can stomp on it and also create an atom or set of
atoms that allow an application to retrieve a copy of the pixmap without
actually having to query the server for it.

For either one, the window manager is usually utterly neutral.  What goes
on inside the client area of the window (other than for certain exceptions)
is entirely the application's problem.  It is or should not be the job of
the window manager to deal with the root pixmap.

There is a pseudo-standard for what gets set on the root window, first
promoted by xsetroot and the xv image-viewing application, and later
extended by Eterm's companion application Esetroot.  Gnome follows this
pseudo-specification, as does KDE.  Other environments that do include
Enlightenment, the window manager Eterm was created for, WindowMaker's
wmsetbg, and blackbox's bsetroot.

So.  Xchat comes along, you tell it to use pseudo-transparency, it goes
looking, it doesn't find what it wants, and it fails.  Eterm will do the
same.  An example of a better-behaved application is aterm, which tries the
second method, then falls back to the first if it needs to.

-- 
 Marc Wilson |     Tip the world over on its side and everything loose
 msw at cox.net |     will land in Los Angeles.  -- Frank Lloyd Wright