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Rethinking Window Management

blogs.gnome.org

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61–70 of 272 posts

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#61

Post by jwells89 »

As a longtime macOS user, while I don't mind the rest of how it handles windows/apps I've never liked the fullscreen mode that was added in 10.7, and the GNOME fullscreen mode mentioned in the blog post is identical. I don't maximize windows often, but when I do I don't usually want the window to be spirited away to its own separate universe, and the apps that actually need fullscreen implement that functionality independent of the window manager.

It's interesting they're considering implementing a way for apps to signal to the window manager the size it prefers for its windows. This has been a concept on OS X since 10.0, though it's only ever been used by the OS figuring out what size to zoom to/from when the user clicks the green zoom button. If this feature makes the cut it I'll be curious to see what other uses they find for it.

One concept I'd like to see return in modern desktop environments are 2D grid virtual desktops. OS X 10.5/10.6 had what I'd consider the best implementation of the idea and I loved it. It leveraged spatial memory much better than the linear layouts popular these days, especially with short smooth animations to make movements between desktops more concrete mentally. 2D grid virtual desktops can still be found in more "old school" type DEs like XFCE but the level of polish isn't comparable.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#62

Post by jmclnx »

bpye wrote: post #50
jmclnx wrote: post #21

>Another issue with tiling window manager is that they place new windows in seemingly arbitrary positions Well we have Xresources to to solve this, but the Gnome and KDE people ignore a standard that has been there for years. And Fluxbox solves this issue by having point/click option to allow you to say "Make this window show up here with this size". But as usual, many GNOME/GTK and some KDE applications ignore that…

Do Xresources and friends make sense now Wayland is finally usable for many folks? Maybe having some sort of environment agnostic config would be good - even with Wayland - but I don’t know that a suitable one exists today.

Wayland is not usable for me, I am on a BSD. So my answer is yes, Xresources makes sense for me :)

Does Wayland even have a method to specifying canned Window Position ?

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#63

Post by IshKebab »

stouset wrote: post #12
goosedragons wrote: post #2

Maximizing windows in their own workspace is annoying and one of the worst parts of macOS window management. I really hope they don't bother with that. Just because I want a maximized window doesn't mean I want it in it's own workspace. It just makes dealing with windows harder because you now have to move to some other workspace to grab a window you want to reference first.

If you option-click the green button or double-click the window handle, it expands a window to fill the screen without making it full-screen on its own space.

It's better than full screen, but it's not real maximised. In particular if you drag the right edge of the screen it will resize the window rather than moving the scrollbar.

Honestly Windows has basically nailed window management (earning its name I guess). Mac is much worse and Gnome is a little worse.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#64

Post by dabber21 »

goosedragons wrote: post #2

Maximizing windows in their own workspace is annoying and one of the worst parts of macOS window management. I really hope they don't bother with that. Just because I want a maximized window doesn't mean I want it in it's own workspace. It just makes dealing with windows harder because you now have to move to some other workspace to grab a window you want to reference first.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I like that behavior

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#65

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

Clearly I am a very simple person, and I don't get all these window management wars.

Almost all my workflows either involve one maximised windows, two windows side by side, or occasionally one smaller windowed floating on top of another.

Linux does that for me by default. You can get the float on top in Windows with some 3re party tools, although it isn't as nicely integrated.

What is everyone doing that needs something else?

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#67

Post by Shorel »

okasaki wrote: post #35

[flagged]

Gnome doesn't even have functional drag and drop for files between two of their file windows. Every time I need to do that I end up selecting a lot of files, because that's the only thing that can be done with the mouse.

Then I use Double Commander or something similar to do the work.

If they can't get the basics right, what can we expect about more complex stuff like tilling?

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#69

Post by plorkyeran »

dabber21 wrote: post #64
goosedragons wrote: post #2

Maximizing windows in their own workspace is annoying and one of the worst parts of macOS window management. I really hope they don't bother with that. Just because I want a maximized window doesn't mean I want it in it's own workspace. It just makes dealing with windows harder because you now have to move to some other workspace to grab a window you want to reference first.

I'm probably in the minority here, but I like that behavior

I like it on smaller laptops and despise it with large external monitors.

Re: Rethinking Window Management

#70

Post by pmontra »

Gnome developers really like automoving stuff on the screen, like activities animations. Instead I could kill a window that does not stay put were I placed it. Who does it thinks it is to know better than me how my desktop must look like?

Anyway, until there is a way to work as I want to, no problem with them enjoying their time. Reconfiguring the desktop to look like Gnome 2 is a tax I pay to have them keeping it compatible with the other components of the system.

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