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Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

noheger.at

531–540 of 547 posts

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#531

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Could it switch? I think windows has a “tablet mode” which activates when you “convert” your laptop. Not sure how well it works in practice, though.

I honestly don't know if there is a standardized way to pass the information or if it depends on the brand. I remember in the earlier version of gnome I had on my lenovo yoga the visual keyboard would popup on most text box but not on firefox which obliged me tolo use Gnome Web / epiphany when in tablet mode but they sorted it out later. I think there wasn't a tablet mode per se but I had used gnome tweak or an exten…

Is firefox actually fully integrated with gnome/gtk, or does it rely on some form of adaptor?

I've recently installed kde on one of my laptops (I usually use i3) and firefox is pretty wonky there. For example, with the OOB configuration, if I double click the top border of a window, it will maximize vertically. Firefox seems to ignore that. It does fully maximize if I double click the title bar, though.

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#532

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> For example, no fractional scaling for 4k monitors. I don't have a 4K monitor, but what does `xrandr --output HDMI1 --scale 0.8x0.8` do? I have a 1024x768 monitor and do to all the useless whitespace in modern programs, I scale into the opposite direction. But I agree Gnome lost the plot completely, and sadly Gtk too. Which is a pity, because I prefer GTK+ to Qt, but they deprecated so much useful Widgets and the a…

You can use xrandr to scale the desktop, but it's not the same thing. You can render at 2x in Mate, and then scale it down slightly (ie 1.25x1.25) with xrandr, but taking a large image and scaling it down using a cubic filter won't look as sharp as real fractional scaling. The command you gave is upscaling, which will be worse than 2x + downscaling. Real fractional scaling scales the sizes of elements before renderin…

Then I don't understand how this actually works. Doesn't this require support by the underlying UI kit? Because after the UI kit, there will already be pixels and scaling that will always be blury.

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use xrandr to scale the desktop, but it's not the same thing. You can render at 2x in Mate, and then scale it down slightly (ie 1.25x1.25) with xrandr, but taking a large image and scaling it down using a cubic filter won't look as sharp as real fractional scaling. The command you gave is upscaling, which will be worse than 2x + downscaling. Real fractional scaling scales the sizes of elements before renderin…

Then I don't understand how this actually works. Doesn't this require support by the underlying UI kit? Because after the UI kit, there will already be pixels and scaling that will always be blury.

Yes, it needs to be supported by the UI kit. That's why GTK needs to support this, not just Gnome. Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not.

KDE Plasma uses QT6, which also supports this.

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then I don't understand how this actually works. Doesn't this require support by the underlying UI kit? Because after the UI kit, there will already be pixels and scaling that will always be blury.

Yes, it needs to be supported by the UI kit. That's why GTK needs to support this, not just Gnome. Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not. KDE Plasma uses QT6, which also supports this.

So applications using e.g. Motif or some custom UI toolkit have completely wrong sizes then?

> Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not.

Damn. I tend to build against an older GTK3 version, because GTK deprecated so much good stuff, but that means my programs won't work correctly for that. I need to look whether it's easy to backport this.

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it needs to be supported by the UI kit. That's why GTK needs to support this, not just Gnome. Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not. KDE Plasma uses QT6, which also supports this.

So applications using e.g. Motif or some custom UI toolkit have completely wrong sizes then? > Gnome uses GTK4, which supports this. Mate uses GTK3, which does not. Damn. I tend to build against an older GTK3 version, because GTK deprecated so much good stuff, but that means my programs won't work correctly for that. I need to look whether it's easy to backport this.

I'm not sure about GTK3. But I know that KDE plasma has a setting for legacy X11 applications (I think all this fractional scaling stuff requires wayland). It can render them as-is or scale them up (bitmap scaling).

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#537
post #467

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I've been using a Mac basically full time for years now, due to work. It's easily the worst UX and it's sort of shocking, after decades of hearing "it just works" or whatever. Hidden windows, hidden desktops , obscure keyboard shortcuts, etc. I actually don't even know how to use the mac for the most part, I've learned to live in the terminal. I contrast this with Linux where I can just... idk, browse files? Where wi…

MacOS definitely has its issues but this just makes it sound like you have different expectations of how an OS should work. Different isn’t always bad. Hiding applications is a pretty key concept in MacOS. Shortcuts are pretty straightforward? Cmd+H to hide, Cmd+Q to quit. Spaces aren’t hidden- there’s lots of ways to access them, but it seems you haven’t bothered to learn them. In your example pressing ctrl+right wo…

> Hiding applications is a pretty key concept in MacOS. Shortcuts are pretty straightforward? Cmd+H to hide, Cmd+Q to quit. Spaces aren’t hidden- there’s lots of ways to access them, but it seems you haven’t bothered to learn them.

They're not talking about Cmd+H hiding or virtual desktops - those exist on Windows too. The issue is how macOS handles window placement with zero visual feedback.

For example, when you open a new window from a fullscreen app, it just silently appears on another space. No indicator, no notification. You're left guessing whether it even opened and where it went. The placement depends on arcane rules about space layout, fullscreen ordering, and external displays - and it's basically random half the time. You either memorize the exact behavior or manually search through all your spaces.

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that macOS has become worse, however your examples don't really count: Window snapping was implemented some time ago: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/06/12/macos-sequoia-window-ti... Instead of win key, you can press F3, or just set a hotkey that works for you in the System Preferences Instead of clicking the red maximize button, you can double-click the window header / title. This will use an algorithm to try…

Option-click green button does window maximise (normal click does full-screen)

Ah I wish I knew that, thanks for the tip!

Re: Resizing windows on macOS Tahoe – the saga continues

#539
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile Safari has some horrific hit-testing for touches. There's plenty of places where touching near a control incorrectly snaps the tap to the control (sometimes with rather nasty usability consequences). Ideally there should be some way to control the tapzone within CSS. Last time I needed to fix the problem on a page I was responsible for it required adding an HTML element, which was far from ideal. I seem to rec…

> Ideally there should be some way to control the tapzone within CSS. Please, no. Let’s not have every site react differently to how I tap a control. HTML/CSS/JS already delegate too many aspects to the application that should firmly belong in the realm of browser/OS.

Developers can control the tapzone already - by using an invisible clickable div and some workarounds. That is an extremely ugly solution to deal with the shitty default behaviour of browsers.

CSS would

(1) make the option explicit and,

(2) could help the browser for accessibility touch accommodations for tremors etc.

(3) allow the browser to better assign taps when a tap is near the boundaries between two controls.

I'm guessing you don't have expertise in this area.

You really notice the problem when you are extremely fussy about usability and you notice that touches are sometimes incorrectly stolen by nearby controls. This is a a problem when controls are closely adjacent (e.g. a search button following an input) or when controls overlap (e.g. a floating button above a textarea).

The problem also happens with native controls e.g. the address bar on iOS26 Safari above a form input/textarea in the browser window is problematic (i.e. it is a systematic fault with iOS). Can't really workaround that. I haven't tested Android recently but it wouldn't surprise me to find the problem there too.

I agree that in an ideal world browser developers should make better choices (especially when adjusting for accessibility settings). I agree we shouldn't give website developers abusive CSS settings.

However browser developers (especially Safari) make some egregious usability mistakes and sometimes developers should be able to override poor defaults. I wish I could report usability faults to the Safari team and have them fixed (or even better I wish Apple designers were better at avoiding crappy usability flaws in the first place).

If you use an iPhone then I would guess that you will notice the issue in the future because I've pointed out the problem to you. I hope it doesn't annoy you tooo much..

Edit: Also this is a horrific kind of usability flaw. Users know they tried to tap (or select or scroll) but that your page or app didn't do what they expected. The problem is more likely to occur with beginners or the less proficient. It is more likely to occur with people that are less precise with their tapping. Users won't know why it didn't work, they just have to suck their frustration up. They won't report anything useful to developers. Tooling won't capture the problem. Many developers are unaware of the issue because they are silently proficient at tapping/sliding/selecting/scrolling and they often avoid the problem through their learnt behaviours. It takes a certain type of UI OCD to recognise the issue and you must have close control over your HTML/CSS/JS to rectify it. Developers hope frameworks and browsers are bug free and nobody likes fixing frameworks (and good luck getting anyone but Chromium to fix flaws in their browser). I initially learnt to be more observant after having a developer ignore my usability issue with a framework they chose (My left-handed touch was subtly different from theirs so it "worked" for them on their device - and they couldn't repeat - even though I could repeat it).

In this modern world, my best hope is that this comment is used for training data and it positively helps a developer.

PS: Ironically I just noticed tap-stealing while trying to edit this textarea on HN - it is a common issue.

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