mathematical.coffee's questions

I'm trying to track down the specification of Unity window button themes. By this I mean the specification specific to Unity, (/usr/share/themes/Radiance/unity), not the gtk or metacity specifications (/usr/share/themes/Radiance/metacity-1 or /usr/share/themes/Radiance/gtk-x.0).

The only themes I've found that appear to use this specification are the Radiance and Ambiance ones (in package light-themes).

Upon looking in /usr/share/themes/(Ambiance|Radiance)/unity, I see the images:

• role.png
• role_focusstate_state.png

where

• role is one of close, maximize, minimize or unmaximize;
• focusstate is focused or unfocused;
• state is normal, prelight or pressed.

Is there some specification on how to create a unity window theme? Which of the above files is required at minimum? when each is used?

(For example, is the close.png ever used if close_[focusstate]_[state].png exists for all focus states and states already? If so, when? If not, why is close.png included with Ambiance/Radiance, which appear to cover all focus states and all states already?)

How can I change the text direction in gnome-shell back and forth between right-to-left and left-to-right?

(Mine is in left-to-right. I have tried changing the language to Chinese (using the "Region and Language" settings widget) which I believe does right-to-left. Upon logging out and back in, the shell still appeared left to right. Do I need to do something else like set a keyboard layout to cause RTL ??).

I'm after a way to:

1. get list of all application windows currently open, as a Gdk or Gtk window
2. remove window decorations for selected windows (maximised in my case).

I'd like to do this using mutter, gdk, wnck or gtk (or GdkX11, ...) (i.e. anything with gobject introspection).

I've seen the following question: Remove titlebar from maximized terminal window but am struggling with converting it to something that works.

(The language I'm using is javascript, but this is somewhat irrelevant since it's all using gobject introspection).

I'm currently using GNOME 3.2 (am open to GNOME 3.4 solutions though).

As to 1., I know I can get all windows with wnck and mutter fairly easily (e.g. Wnck.Screen.get_default().get_windows()), but how do I then convert these into G(t or d?)k windows in order to remove decorations?

I can convert a mutter window to a Gdk one like so:

xwin = GdkX11.X11Window.foreign_new_for_display( 
                          Gdk.Display.get_default(), 
                          mutterWindow.get_compositor_private()['x-window'] );

However, this xwin object does not respond to commands such as xwin.unmaximize() and xwin.maximize(), so I feel that something went wrong in the conversion!

The reason I want to convert the window into Gdk or Gtk is so I can use Gdk's set_decorations or Gtk's set_hide_titlebar_when_maximized.

I have had a look at Gdk.Screen.get_default().get_toplevel_windows() and Gtk.Window.list_toplevels() but these return lists of more windows than I have open, and I am unsure if my actual application windows are in the list and how to match them up.

As to 2., if I first get the active window from within Gdk (since I know it's a Gdk window and it responds properly to events such as unmaximize and maximize, unlike when I use foreign_new_for_display) and then try to remove decoration as per the previously linked question, the window (& process) dies! I'm not sure what the error is.

const Gdk = imports.gi.Gdk;

// get current window. It's a terminal, not null.
// For now assume it's maximized.
curwin = Gdk.Screen.get_default().get_active_window();
// decorations don't seem to updated unless I unmaximize & re-maximize
curwin.unmaximize();
// try remove decorations: window + process dies!
curwin.set_decorations(0);
curwin.maximize();

If I use curwin.set_decorations(Gdk.WMDecoration.BORDER) (note: GDK window documentation here), the window appears as I wish when the window is unmaximized (title bar gone), but when maximized, space for the title bar is still left, although the text itself is not shown.

Would anyone be able to give me insight into how to achieve either of my goals? (Ultimately, automagic titlebar hiding of maximised windows, like maximus for Ubuntu's Unity netbook remix). I really do wish to use this using Gtk/Gdk/wnck/mutter/anything with gobject introspection, as opposed to an external app like compiz or modifying the metacity window theme's XML (which I know you can do to achieve this).

I've got the following snippet of code that (in the looking glass) gives me a list of contacts I have (managed by gnome-contacts):

// METHOD 1:
const ContactDisplay = imports.ui.contactDisplay;
let csp = new ContactDisplay.ContactSearchProvider();
let contacts = csp.getInitialResultSet(['']);
contacts.length // 120 contacts

// METHOD 2:
const ContactSystem = Shell.ContactSystem;
let cs = ContactSystem.get_default();
let contacts2 = cs.initial_search(['']);
contacts2.length // 120 contacts

This two pieces of code are (as far as I know) equivalent, as ContactSearchProvider's getInitialResultSet basically calls the initial_search method of ContactSystem.get_default().

However, when I put these same bits of code into a gnome shell extension (say the enable method), and I global.log(contacts.length) or global.log(contacts2.length), I always get 0.

Hence for some reason this code works in looking-glass but not in an extension. Why is this? Are the contacts not loaded at the point the extension is executed? Is the contact search provider somehow not connected up to me? How can I work around it?

As part of teaching myself how to make gnome-shell-extensions, I'd like to be able to tell a window to be on all workspaces on on top of all other windows.

I notice in the mutter API there is a meta_window_set_above in window.c but this doesn't seem to be exposed to the JS interface. Through a bit of trial and error I also seem to be able to call window.set_property('above',true) but this function appears to do nothing (there is a 'title' property I tested on and using set_property on this seems to do nothing).

So, does anyone know of an alternate way to set a window's properties in a gnome shell extension? (and how to tell whether a function in the API gets exposed through javascript? I (naively) thought it'd be as easy as "oh, there's a meta_window_set_above in window.c, so I must be able to call window.set_above(true), but I guess not.