🚀 go-pugleaf

According to the Reilley book it is possible to 'suggest' to the
window manager to iconify or deiconify a top level window by
setting the initial_flag appropriately in the XWMHints
structure and executing XSetWMHints within the application
to toggle between icon and non-icon state. I am able
to start up the windows as either iconic or non
iconic but not to change their  state later directly 
within the application.

I am trying to put some command  widgets in my application
to map  back up some top level shell widgets (of the
same applciation) that have been iconified previously
 by the window manager.

I don't seem to be able to do it at all with uwm,twm or awm
(X11R3) window managers.
Am I missing some steps? is the XSetWMHints call only 
caught by the Window manager when the window is created the first time?

thanks