README

This is the copy of matchbox2 which is under development for fremantle.
It is held here in svn to save having to keep the original pristine and
write patches against it.

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Matchbox Window Manager II README.
======

Intro
===

Matchbox Window Manager II is a complete rewrite of the original
m-w-m. It is in early stages of development.


Plans/Aims Overview
===

o Manage windows in a restricted stack PDA style just like the original m-w-m.

o Be small, fast, dependency light, flexible just like the original m-w-m.

o Dont use libmb (XRender can be used for basic image compositing,
  performance issues should be able to be addressed via clever caching)

o Be very modular in nature using a simple object system. m-w-m-2
  should consist of core and optional building blocks which can be
  put togeather in various ways to form a window manager for a specific
  embedded UI (with varying constraints). The object system should
  provide this rather than being dependant on #ifdefs to add specific
  behaviour for a specific platform/UI.

o Form a Much cleaner and manageable code base.

o Use Xlib on XCB (or options xlibint.h) for more async prop calls.

o *Optional* support for glib mainloop and GTK.

o Support various themeing/decoration engines.

o Better support compositing.


Design
===

m-w-m-2 source code is split into various components as follows;

  - src/core

  Contains the core code and classes for providing window
  management. Ideally all objects should be overideable with an
  alternate implimentation and policy.

  TODO: Objectify things like the wm core and layout engine.
	Window Decorations / Buttons.
	Support EWMH. 

  - src/client-types

  Contains sub classes of the cores 'client' type to implement handling of
  various window types (eg app windows, dialogs, panels).
  
  Each type sets layout and stacking as to how to wish to
  be managed (eg the core knows nothing about what a 'dialog' is, just
  the hints its provides). 

  TODO: Basically pad this out more. 

  - src/theme-engines

  Implementations of various theme engines.

  TODO: lots

  - src/managers

  The 'meat' which pulls the above togeather to form a window manager for a 
  particular platform. Currently just a 'simple' implentation exists, but in
  the future others could exists like matchbox-window-manager-maemo for 
  example.

  TODO: lots

In the future other sub directorys could be 'composite', 'GTK' etc..


Notes
==

It could be worth (optionally) building everything (except managers)
as a lib so out of tree WM's could be built.