[GRASS5] usability tweak on OSX

[Hamish]

> > Here's a window placement tweak that makes things a bit less
> > annoying on the Mac (and I guess elsewhere too) from the d.m
> > zoom/pan buttons.
> > 
> > It's sort of bending to my preferences of where windows should be
> > placed, but we should specify something other than just dumping
> > everything in  the middle of screen. Having to drag the windows to
> > somewhere useful everytime you start the program is a pain.
> 
> If placement isn't specified anywhere, then it's up to the window
> manager as to where windows are placed. Most window managers allow the
> user to configure this.
> 
> I have no idea how this applies to MacOSX (which I presume doesn't use
> a WM).

FWIW, tweak was written for & on MacOSX. OSX places new windows as most
WMs do, ie near to the middle but skewed towards any free desktop real-
estate.

 
> > -    eval exec -- xterm -e $env(GISBASE)/etc/grass-run.sh $cmd $args &
> > +    eval exec -- xterm -geometry -50-40 -e $env(GISBASE)/etc/grass-run.sh $cmd $args &
> 
> We definitely shouldn't be hardcoding xterm placement inside d.m.

Why not? Will it break something or is it just bad practice to do so?
It's just hinting that it wants to be a little towards the center 
of the screen from the bottom right corner, whatever that may be.
My linux WM (sawfish) will ignore X -geometry if I've given explicit 
instructions for a certain window name to go somewhere.
?

 
> A better approach would be to set the xrdb name using -name, e.g.
> 
> 	eval exec -- xterm -name xterm-grass ...

Setting "-name xterm-grass" is a very good idea.


> then place GRASS xterms using X resources, i.e.
> 
> 	*xterm-grass.geometry: -50-40

No problem for me, but way too involved for avg Mac user. And avg Mac 
user is the one using d.m and spawning windows all over the place, 
not me. So why go to the trouble? Can't we just set good defaults & 
let the advanced users override with their WM if they want to?



..hopefully spawning xterms is only a temporary work-around anyway..


Hamish