Comment by phkahler
4 years ago
>> the (all too well-known) file picker issue where when you type something it interprets it as file name filter rather than, you know, the file name you want to save under
That one drives me insane.
>> general window positioning
I want my applications to come up where they were when I last closed them. This used to be up to the app under X, and I'm fully on board with the Wayland idea that an application shouldn't know or be able to modify its window position. But that means putting things where they were is the DE/compositors responsibility now, and I fear they're going to fight that idea forever. I hope I'm wrong though.
> I'm fully on board with the Wayland idea that an application shouldn't know or be able to modify its window position
Why? Genuine question - that sounds like an incredibly opinionated position for the display server to force up the stack, and I don't have a good intuition for why it should be necessary.
>> Why? Genuine question - that sounds like an incredibly opinionated position for the display server to force up the stack...
The security model in Wayland seems to keep the application largely isolated from its environment. No warping the mouse pointer, no reading pixels, no understanding of what the user might be doing outside the application window. I can agree with all of that in principle. It is not the applications place to move anything on the desktop including itself. Those are to be done by the user. Also for consistency this kind of thing has to be done by the DE.
It was also nonsensical to have have applications be responsible for remembering their own positions instead of the "window manager". Read that again "window manager" ;-)
> The security model in Wayland seems to keep the application largely isolated from its environment.
I really don't see what good that is when considered in the greater context of the Linux desktop paradigm, wherein any application running under your user almost certainly has write access to your entire $HOME, including the ability to tamper with your shell configuration, edit your $PATH, and do all manner of nasty subversive shit. To get any real security benefit from Wayland over X, you'd have to abandon the entire Linux desktop paradigm and use a completely new ecosystem as different from the traditional linux desktop as Android is.
If you just use Wayland as a drop-in replacement for X (as GNOME/Wayland and KDE/Wayland are essentially doing), you're still screwed six ways to Sunday.
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With multiple monitors, and multiple multi-monito configurations, window position becomes a complicated concept, full of pitfalls and corner cases. It is reasonable (although admittedly not the only possibility solution) to centralize the window position management in the wm.
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise.
What does follow is that apps should have a library available which allows them to express their positioning desires while accounting for the complications and corner cases.
Even if positioning were centralized, apps should still have been able to tell the WM "This is what I want to happen w.r.t. positioning, try to accommodate me".
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More simply, because I say where the application goes. It absolutely does not get a say in the matter. It's my computer.
I got used to type slash(/) which opens file input field when ever I'm pasting file.
With respect to the Wayland devs, as they've been fighting more than an uphill battle for a decade now, but that is so bone-headed.
If their design philosophy is like this in general, no wonder no one is adopting it. It's just a worse X.
It is the default used by every major distro now, so it is definitely adopted. Also, it has a very good design, solving real issues.