Hi,

I've been fiddling around with the TWM and the X Server xLib manuals for a few days now, and out of curiosity I was wondering if it might be possible to create an entire window manager or a desktop environment using only GTK.

Thanks!

P.S. just another question: is it possible for a desktop manager to exist without a window manager.

Overlapping windows is a convenient way to organize tasks. One early system divided the screen into 4 fixed-sized tiles so it avoided the complexity of backing space and redrawing. It limited you to 4 tasks but a 6Mhz processor can't run many tasks anyway.

Desktops have to deal with more than just drawing so would likely want to use other libraries than just GTK but I don't see why you couldn't use it for all of the drawing.

Well... It can't easily be a "manager" without something to manage. A desktop is just a convention. Icons on a desktop are actually just tiny (and usually static) window. Placement of those windows (both icons and regular windows) is a function of a window manager... and a desktop manager.

Without the window management all your windows get opened in a default location (usually the top left corner (0,0) but it can be anywhere). You can't move them very well because that requires a window manager, OR each application has to have a "manager" built in to control its own windows.

If each application does it, then you get a rather LARGE amount of bloat, with all applications having to do the same work. This is the task that a window manager takes over.