Window mismanagement page 3

The first myth of window management is that it exists…

It seems that generally taking care of the screen is something that window managers are just not trained properly to do. For example, Grid Wars decided to run full screen and then forget what it was doing, and nothing remembered what the screeen was supposed to look like:

Nor has the window manager realised that now Grid Wars wants a lower resolution, the taskbar (along with other windows) are meant to adjust to fit (note the processor gauge where the clock is supposed to be). The only thing the window manager bothered to change was the desktop picture, which was left the wrong size after I cancelled Grid Wars after waiting 15 minutes for it to load and my resolution was restored.

Full-screen mode was always a dubious affair, leaving the user in peril of being cut off from control and access to the system, but more generally, the system never knows what it is supposed to look like.

Also, when a program closes, its window is meant to be removed from the screen, but everything is not always as it ought:

(That particular Access script triggers this bug every time it is run.)

Window managers should be able to work out what order on the screen windows should be drawn. Task switchers should not end up underneath other windows (and the one in the example is neither global nor system modal):

And a floating parent window should not enforce child windows to also be floating, as common as this may be:

Likewise, dialog boxes should not pop up underneath their parent window:

Nor should a dialog box in one application be able to decide that it is going to sit above every window on the entire screen:

Window managers should be canny, savvy and wise, but more likely they’re hopeless and hare-brained and can’t actually remember either what they were doing or even what their windows look like:

(Those images were from silvestrij and Mr Anonymous; the first one scares me as to just how Exposé was designed…)