Use XCB

[HarveyHunt]

I can't seem to post on /dev/ (perhaps I don't have enough posts?).

I think that using XCB is a good idea, it is a far more modern library than XLib and has some rather nice features for writing window managers (xcb_ewmh and xcb_icccm).

[DebianJoe]

Hmm. I'll let everyone else chime in on this, as this isn't really my project, and I'm down for using whatever makes everyone happy but seldom equate 'modern' to 'better.' GTK-3 would be a more modern implementation than ncurses, or Gtk-2, or Xlib...but I am not a huge fan of it personally.

[machinebacon]

Thanks Harvey for the input (I have fixed your permissions for the /dev section)
One question regarding Xlib vs XCB - for this WM, which basically "only" maximizes windows and will (probably) never have anything that needs to comply with ewmh, where is the advantage of using one over the other?

[HarveyHunt]

There is a nice section about "Requests and replies- the Xlib killer" here.

Thanks for fixing my permissions MB.

I don't think there is any reason to rule out EWMH compliance- it is still a nice thing to add. I don't mind implementing it as it is something that I am familiar with.

[machinebacon]

Thanks for the link. I'm not opposing XCB, by the way. See my question as a real question of somebody who has no idea about it :)

[ivanovnegro]

I am with Bacon here. I have no idea what the real difference is, I just know that the majority of the modern WMs use XCB, spectrwm switched recently to it but others that I use, older ones, still use the old one and it works. :) I do not mind as long as it does what Bacon wants from it or what it says on the tin. ;)

Great name btw!

[DebianJoe]

Spent some time actually reading through the xcb headers that are used in howm. I'll give it this, it's a neat way to handle things, for sure. I would say that there are less logical issues with implementing the xcb way for optimizing performance. I'm currently 'on the fence'.

[HarveyHunt]

It is a rather nice library and the xcb_ewmh and xcb_icccm can abstract away a lot of competitive code (look at ewmh_setup in howm for an example).

[DebianJoe]

I am pretty well convinced that both paths can lead to enlightenment, so to speak. In the effort to avoid bikeshedding, I'm totally down for learning to work with new libs (I'm part of that 'old guard' who still think that glibc is too fancy). If you're (Hunt) willing to help out by explaining the 'why' I should abide by the standards set when I accidentally deviate from them (which I probably will through ignorance), then I'm all for giving it a shot just to see what the differences will end up being.