Re: Frame title problem

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Jan Djärv writes:

 > So the shortname is known to the X Server but the fqdn is not?

No, AFAIK the X server doesn't know anything about this; it never
inspects window properties, does it?  It's the window manager (another
client) that is obtaining this information.

 > This is so naive.  The identity of a machine is not so simple as
 > kwin people would wish, but I guess they are too lazy to fix their
 > bad code.

Sorry, kwin is right and you're wrong.  Martin G. is being a jerk and
gave the wrong reason, though.  The right one is the definition of
"client property", especially the last sentence:

    4.1.2. Client Properties

    Once the client has one or more top-level windows, it should place
    properties on those windows to inform the window manager of the
    behavior that the client desires. Window managers will assume
    values they find convenient for any of these properties that are
    not supplied; clients that depend on particular values must
    explicitly supply them. The window manager will not change
    properties written by the client.

So it's very definitely *not* the kwin people's problem to clean up
disagreements among clients.  (In theory they could parse the property
and use only the parts they like, but that would Really Suck IMHO.)

Those disagreements indicate a problem with the standard (what else is
new?)  In this case there is no rationale given for WM_CLIENT_MACHINE
and the definition ambiguous (at the very least, "localhost",
`hostname -s`, and the canonical domain name are plausible), so it's
not clear what this is good for, and no way to judge whether the
default implementation in the X.org version of Xlib makes sense.

 > So I changed Emacs so it lets the X libs set WM_CLIENT_MACHINE.

Given the quality of the standard, the only use I can think of is as a
heuristic for "readable host name" in frame decorations.  If so and
the Xlibs will do this for you, this is the Right Thing.

If anybody actually cares, you could make this a user option in Emacs.
But at this point I am almost certain you shouldn't do more than leave
a comment to the effect that `system-name' is plausible too and could
be an option.