SGI's migration to X

[Steve Lehar]

When  I  complain that   X  doesn't allow  advance positioning of  the
window, joe at etac632 says...

   -----------------------------------------------------------------------
  | There is an XSizeHints struct which includes the position and size. Be
  | sure to set the flags parameter to USPosition. The  helloworld program
  | in the "Introduction to the X Window System"  by Oliver Jones shows an
  | example of this which we used...
   -----------------------------------------------------------------------

I followed that same helloworld template, but somehow, when I modified
it to do images,  it  ceased to go  to where it was  supposed  to.   I
loaded up my XSizeHints as required...

  /**** set window position and size hints ****/
  xsh.flags = (PPosition | PSize);
  xsh.x = 100;			<------- please put window at position 100,100
  xsh.y = 100;
  xsh.height = win_ysize;
  xsh.width  = win_xsize;

but it simply ignored this "hint".  bernie at ecr.mu.oz.au (Bernie Kirby)
tells me that the secret is ...

  "you have to set the "override_redirect" thingy to True somewhere."

Well, this is likely to be the kind of thing that has to be  done.  Do
you see my complaint?  This kind of thing is typical of  X.  If it was
better designed,  the window position should either  be defined in the
window hints structure, or should  be a parameter to XCreateWindows().
In fact, you can be intimately familiar with  BOTH of these things and
STILL not be able to  position  your window because  you  haven't read
about the undocumented "override_redirect" thingy!   X is just full of
such hidden mysteries!  I don't  doubt that these  things can be  done
somehow, but I'm afraid you need a PhD in XOlogy to just open a window
and put an image in it!


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