Re: Infrastructural complexity.

[martin rudalics]

> I recall that we had an inconclusive discussion over the relative merits
> of two proposals, one by Joakim that (IIRC) relied on window parameters,
> and another by Martin that uses more built-in code.  Does anyone have
> any new thoughts about this?

From earlier discussions I'm fairly convinced of one thing: A window
group should correspond to an internal window.  IIRC Klaus Berndl
confirmed that ECB configurations always form rectangles so there should
not be problems with ECB.  If, however, someones wants to combine
non-rectangular subregions of a frame to form a group, this approach
won't work (in that case, however, a number of features like cloning a
window group into a separate frame would have no intuitive solution
anyway).

FWIW, the following issues are still unresolved:

- Whether we should allow nested or intersecting window groups.  This is
  a fundamental issue.

- Whether we want special naming conventions for window groups and
  whether we should permit unnamed window groups.  This is not a serious
  issue since all this can be easily resolved on top of internal windows
  but would be good to know.

- Whether, which and how window properties (fixed-size, dedicated, ...)
  apply to window groups.  This is a subtle issue since a fixed-size
  window group should probably allow to vary the sizes of the individual
  windows within the group but not the size of the rectangle covered by
  the group.  A dedicated window group would likely forbid to replace
  the entire rectangle by something else and allow to replace the
  contents of individual members of the group but this seems far less
  intuitive already.

- Whether and how window groups interact with window parameters: We can
  easily extend window parameters to apply to internal windows and, as a
  rule, store all group relevant information there - like, for example,
  whether `delete-other-windows' invoked within a window of a group
  should delete all other members of that group or all other windows of
  the containing frame.

- Whether and how window groups can be distinguished visually within the
  containing frame.

martin