sawfish and hiding gnome-panel: possible cause and a workaround

[Kimmo Jukarainen <kimju-debian-2004@inside.org>]

I got sufficiently annoyed with Gnome's top panel disappearing and 
tried to find it's cause.

First, here's how the problem can be reproduced on several up-to-date 
Debian sarge installations (no packages from external sources):

1) Create a new user without any customised gnome/sawfish/xsession 
   configurations.
2) Start X (either startx or login via gdm) with this user.
3) Debian's default gnome desktop starts fine.
4) Remove metacity from session and replace it with sawfish.
5) Exit saving setting.

So far so good, but:

6) Restart / relogin with the same user.
7) Session starts, the top panel flashes on top of the screen (where 
   it should be) and disappears.
8) Creating a new panel and positioning it top doesn't go to top of 
   the screen, but hovers some distance (actually the height of the 
   original top panel) from the edge. 
   The original top panel can actually be found beneath the bottom 
   panel and moved where it should be.
9) If gnome-panel is killed the session management restarts it and 
   the panels reappear positioned correctly.

Because of 9) I tried rearranging the sessions start order, moving 
sawfish and gnome-panel around each other, but it didn't make any 
difference.

After verifying that the problem can be reproduced after removing 
.gnome* and .sawfish* and starting from 1), I started to limit what 
to remove. After few iterations I found out that removing the file[1]
created in 5) from .sawfish/sessions/ is sufficient -- without it the
panels are positioned correctly.

With little more tinkering around I also found out that removing the 
"Bottom Panel" section from the session file is also sufficient -- as
is moving it below the "Top Panel" section[2].

So the problem can be worked around by editing .sawfish/session/* but 
it still reappears each time I exit with saving settings.

Any ideas for the real cause?

[1] Attached as 'non-working.sawfish-session'
[2] Attached as 'working.sawfish-session'

;; session saved for email@address.censored
;; sawfish version 1.3; Thu Jul 15 01:12:54 2004

((name . "Desktop")
 (dimensions 1600 . 1200)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790300000120320003")
 (role)
 (class . "desktop_windowNautilus")
 (command . "nautilus--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . -4)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 0)
 (viewport 0 . 0))

((name . "Bottom Panel")
 (dimensions 1600 . 42)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790200000120320002")
 (role)
 (class . "gnome-panelGnome-panel")
 (command . "gnome-panel--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . 0)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 1158)
 (viewport 0 . 0))

((name . "Top Panel")
 (dimensions 1600 . 27)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790200000120320002")
 (role)
 (class . "gnome-panelGnome-panel")
 (command . "gnome-panel--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . 0)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 0)
 (viewport 0 . 0))

;; session saved for email@address.censored
;; sawfish version 1.3; Thu Jul 15 01:12:54 2004

((name . "Desktop")
 (dimensions 1600 . 1200)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790300000120320003")
 (role)
 (class . "desktop_windowNautilus")
 (command . "nautilus--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . -4)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 0)
 (viewport 0 . 0))

((name . "Top Panel")
 (dimensions 1600 . 27)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790200000120320002")
 (role)
 (class . "gnome-panelGnome-panel")
 (command . "gnome-panel--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . 0)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 0)
 (viewport 0 . 0))

((name . "Bottom Panel")
 (dimensions 1600 . 42)
 (client-id . "11c1a650fe000108869790200000120320002")
 (role)
 (class . "gnome-panelGnome-panel")
 (command . "gnome-panel--screen=0")
 (machine . "airlee")
 (sticky . t)
 (fixed-position . t)
 (sticky-viewport . t)
 (depth . 0)
 (type . unframed)
 (position 0 . 1158)
 (viewport 0 . 0))