diff options
| author | Elijah Newren <newren gmail com> | 2006-04-14 17:36:17 +0000 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Elijah Newren <newren@src.gnome.org> | 2006-04-14 17:36:17 +0000 |
| commit | 1dea155c8c7b18366ee38c25224066df67f63049 (patch) | |
| tree | 8b8e1493a4a15fc03726526b501d3577592445e3 /HACKING | |
| parent | 694a4352bc9fe04608a7f457d53fe676026b9748 (diff) | |
| download | metacity-1dea155c8c7b18366ee38c25224066df67f63049.tar.gz | |
Include reasons why gdk/gtk.h and core includes like display.h/window.h
2006-04-14 Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>
* HACKING: Include reasons why gdk/gtk.h and core includes like
display.h/window.h must be kept separate. Taken from a private
email from Havoc.
Diffstat (limited to 'HACKING')
| -rw-r--r-- | HACKING | 29 |
1 files changed, 24 insertions, 5 deletions
@@ -197,11 +197,30 @@ Debugging information of window without launching a full desktop. Technical gotchas to keep in mind - Files that include gdk.h or gtk.h are not supposed to include display.h - or window.h or other core files. - - Files in the core (display.[hc], window.[hc]) are not supposed to include - gdk.h or gtk.h. + Files that include gdk.h or gtk.h are not supposed to include + display.h or window.h or other core files. Files in the core + (display.[hc], window.[hc]) are not supposed to include gdk.h or + gtk.h. Reasons: + + "Basically you don't want GDK most of the time. It adds + abstractions that cause problems, because they aren't designed to + be used in a WM where we do weird stuff (display grabs, and just + being the WM). At best GDK adds inefficiency, at worst it breaks + things in weird ways where you have to be a GDK guru to figure + them out. Owen also told me that they didn't want to start adding + a lot of hacks to GDK to let a WM use it; we both agreed back in + the mists of time that metacity would only use it for the "UI" + bits as it does. + + Having the split in the source code contains and makes very clear + the interface between the WM and GDK/GTK. This keeps people from + introducing extra GDK/GTK usage when it isn't needed or + appropriate. Also, it speeds up the compilation a bit, though this + was perhaps more relevant 5 years ago than it is now. + + There was also a very old worry that the GDK stuff might have to + be in a separate process to work right; that turned out to be + untrue. Though who knows what issues the CM will introduce." Remember that strings stored in X properties are not in UTF-8, and they have to end up in UTF-8 before we try putting them through Pango. |