[comp.windows.x] changing the parent window...

tmb@ganymede.UUCP (10/13/88)

Often, I would like an X application to open its windows inside another
window (or to get a window manager to operate on the subwindows of
another window). 

Is there an agreed upon way of communicating this to the application?
This question applies to both X10 and X11. For example, using an environment 
variable, I might say:

$ PARENTWINDOWID=1234567 myfancyxapplication &

Or, for you C-shell users:

% setenv PARENTWINDOWID 1234567
% myfancyxapplication &

I believe this facility is very important if X is to integrate well with
UNIX. The reason is that the UNIX way of writing applications is to write
lots of little independent magic cookies (e.g. a program to display histograms,
a program to display pie charts, a program to do a file dialog), and to
interconnect them via pipes. However, often the windows that these magic
cookies open should open inside a single window for the whole application.

					Thanks, Thomas.

PS: please reply directly to me as well as to the list, since I don't know
whether my uucp link will keep up with the flood of postings on xpert 
and I might just cancel my subscription.

RWS@ZERMATT.LCS.MIT.EDU (Robert Scheifler) (10/13/88)

There is no agreed upon way of specifying the parent window to run
inside of.  The ICCCM under review in the X Consortium currently
contains the notion of a "pseudo-root" that gives essentially this kind
of mechanism (but with a slightly different viewpoint), and we have
*experimental* support for this that will probably be in the R3 Xlib
implementation, but there are a number problems with it, and it may be
that a different solution is required.