tombert <
tomber...@live.at> wrote:
> On Thursday, 21 September 2017 18:35:43 UTC+2, Robert Heller wrote:
>> At Thu, 21 Sep 2017 08:22:06 -0700 (PDT) Brad Lanam <
brad....@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> > On Thursday, September 21, 2017 at 8:18:13 AM UTC-7, Brad Lanam wrote:
>> > > wm iconify is supposed to iconify the window and put an icon on the desktop. Not many window managers do this any more. There's even a way to set the icon
>> > > picture.
>>
>> Right. With the advent of GUI file managers and the use of the Desktop for
>> *file* and *folder* icons, the use of the Desktop for *application window*
>> icons has fallen out of "favor". Having "transient" *application window* icons
>> mixed in with "fixed" *file* and *folder* icons would likely be very
>> confusing for users.
>>
>> > >
>> > > wm withdraw is the proper command to use. I use this on Linux and Windows
>> > > and Mac OS X and it works.
>> > >
>> > > I don't think there is a bug, it is just that wm iconify is old and was used
>> > > for a different purpose.
>> >
>> > The part that is confusing is that there is no 'wm restore' corresponding to
>> > 'wm withdraw'. You have to use 'wm deiconify' for that purpose.
>>
>> Yes, this is probably confusing...
>>
> I do not know what this is about? The application is not moved onto
> the "desktop" but on to the taskbar. The taskbar shows
> active/running applications.
> Fixed application icons with "transient" icons (that is running
> applications) is de facto standard in Windows world and in Ubuntu.
> One can have the file explorer on the taskbar even when it's not
> running. I have never found that confusing.
I suspect the OP for the comment is referring to the pre-win95 days and
pre "desktop environment" days of Unix machines where the only things
that were on the desktop background were:
1) an optional wallpaper
2) icons of *currently running*, but iconified, applications
There were no "task bars" into which an application could "iconify" in
these days. In the Unix world, if there were no running apps at all,
the desktop background would be just the wallpaper and nothing more.
One (usually) accessed ones menu by clicking on the desktop background,
upon which a menu would appear to allow one to open whatever apps one
had configured into the menu.
The "task bar" concept of having a reserved area of the screen where
there was a fixed button to access a menu of apps to launch, and a
fixed area where small icons of running applications would appear, was
a later concept. It existed (somewhat) as a possibility in a few Unix
window managers (when I first saw the Win95 taskbar it looked to me
like a direct ripoff of the "iconbar" from either twm or tvtwm, I
forget which now), but the overall concept was popularized, and very
much locked down, by Win95 which was the masses first exposure to a
"taskbar/start button" concept.
But all of this history is of no help in determining why "wm iconify"
does not actually iconify the window into the Ubuntu task bar like it
should. But given that "wm iconify" is merely a request to the current
window manager (which is not your Tcl/Tk application) to iconify the
Tcl/Tk app window, the fact that it fails implies some issue with
Ubuntu's window manager (whatever WM it is that is running).