1995-era installshield woes - foreground window never appears

[Greg Turner]

On Sunday 19 January 2003 09:39 pm, Francois Gouget wrote:
> On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Dan Kegel wrote:
> > Aha!  .wine/config had managed=Y.  Switching it to managed=N
> > made the dialog box show up properly!

hmm, so I get the impression it still doesn't work for you?

> > OK, this has to be a bug in wine, doesn't it?
>
> Not really. I believe this is a typical case of 'unmanaged windows go
> on top'. Let me explain.
>
> That big blue window is most probably handled by Wine as an unmanaged
> X window because it should not have the regular window decorations or
> something like that. The problem is that some window managers (e.g.
> the KDE WM) systematically put such windows on top of regular managed
> windows. So when Wine then creates the installer dialog, a regular
> managed X window, it is hidden by that big blue window. Furthermore
> these window managers often make it hard to bring the managed windows
> on top.
>
> So the 'fix' is to get Wine to treat all windows as managed
> windows... and tell the window manager not to give them decorations.
> This has been discussed before and I believe it is in Alexandre's
> todo-list. But this stuff is pretty complex so it may take some
> time...
>
> So in the meantime the solution is to either use Managed=N or
> Desktop="800x600".  Desktop="800x600" is pretty nice for installers,
> especially if you put it in an executable-specific section, typically
> one with the name of the installer. But desktop mode does not work
> very well either (new processes get out of the desktop). Oh, well...

I'm not sure that doesn't qualify as a bug in my book...  I think you 
are right to point out that it may not be easy to fix properly.  But 
even if its a feature, it's a confusing one.

Presumably, your install is still failing, Dan?  Now that you have the 
blue screen usurper taken care of, does winedbg speak to you?

-- 
gmt

"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by
the individual who can labor in freedom." --Albert Einstein