Linux & application metadata

[Alex Rice]

On Monday, September 29, 2003, at 09:50  AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> Worse, it appears each of the window managers has a different scheme 
> for
> doing this, and I've seen no indication that it's occured to any of 
> them to
> standardize. :(

But the freedesktop.org site indicates there is some effort to 
standardize. Maybe in 10 years. :-)

> I hope I'm wrong.

You are not wrong, AFAIK. I'm not a full-time Linux user, anymore, 
however as long as I've used UNIX, there has always been different 
Window Managers in use.

The Window Manager is a significant layer on top of X Windows that adds 
all desktop and window management functionality. X Windows without a 
window manager appears to be an empty grey stippled screen with a 
cursor. Launch an X Windows app with no window manager running and it 
will have no window frame, and no controls.

Window Mgr (KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, fvwm, twm, afterstep, ...)
   |
X Windows (XFree86)
   |
Linux OS

> I have some things to deploy to Linux and just finding this basic info 
> has
> eaten more time than something this trivial deserves.  Once I find the 
> magic
> recipe for file associations, icon assignments, and putting an alias 
> in the
> Start menu, I'll post a summary of instructions at my Rev page.

For what Window manager though? You have to pick one window manager, 
e.g. KDE - K Desktop Environment, and figure out how to do it for that 
window manager. There is not, and probably never will be, one way for 
all Linux machines. Because who knows what Window Manager the user will 
be running.

KDE is used in Lindows (I think) and several other Linux distros. Sun 
Solaris is going to have (already has?) a Gnome variant. Redhat 
probably comes with KDE and Gnome but don't know what the default is 
anymore.

Unfortunately most of the people in a position to fix this mess- and 
standardize the Window Managers- are people who just use the Window 
Manager as a vehicle for arranging tens of xterm console windows on 
their screen, and probably don't use file associations at all 
themselves- just use the shell for launching X Windows apps with a 
filename, or with command line options. :-(

Command line is king as far as UNIX developers, and a lot of users, are 
concerned.

Alex Rice <alex at mindlube.com> | Mindlube Software | http://mindlube.com

what a waste of thumbs that are opposable
to make machines that are disposable  -Ani DiFranco