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Re: [Ayatana] Put a resize widget in the title bar



On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 19:34, zekopeko <zekopeko@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 6:46 PM, frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx
<frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi Zekopeko,
>
> On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 17:52, zekopeko <zekopeko@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, Dec 27, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Frederik Nnaji
>> <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Mon, 2010-12-27 at 17:18 +0100, zekopeko wrote:
>> >
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> I suggest you look at Divvy[1]. Looks like a really nice way of
>> >> marrying a tilling manager to a non-tilling manager.
>> >
>> > thanks!
>> > divvy is cool, we had that before in a months old Ayatana thread iirc,
>> > and i think i liked it already for its inspirational power back then ;)
>> >
>> >> If it was up to me I would copy Aero Snap when dragging to the edge
>> >
>> > Aero Snap features are already outdated, when you get to check Compiz
>> > Grid plugin in Natty, try it!
>> >
>> >> and would put a windicator for Divvy-clone on the right in the title
>> >> bar. Pressing the
>> >> button would produce a Divvy-widget allowing you to tile the window.
>> >
>> > Why clone if you can understand, abstract, learn, do it better?
>> > What is the main functionality of divvy? Painless window resizing to a
>> > grid.
>> >
>> > Now lets just enable a grid by default, snapping windows to it
>> > automatically upon resize, move and perhaps also upon scale. To override
>> > the snap-to-grid, just enable a modifier such as ALT or CTRL or SUPER,
>> > which would actually make a good metaphor for "float", since "super" is
>> > the latin word for over/above.
>> >
>> > Wouldn't that be sufficiently innovative and useful to justify *not*
>> > cloning other stuff ("taillight syndrome")?
>> >
>> > There was another thread about the Window Picker (Compiz Scale) being
>> > initiated if you click on a launcher, even when it has only one window.
>> > Why not rotate three functions on the launchers:
>> > * raise & focus
>> > * spread exposé
>> > * tile for dual-pane mode, as i mocked up above.
>> >
>> > if you're interested, i can scheme up how i imagine the "tile for
>> > dual-pane mode" scenario in detail.. but i think the dual pane thing is
>> > for the other thread (tiling and floating WM)
>> >
>> >
>>
>> Grid is really nice, very Aero-snappy. The problem is that resizing
>> stuff via mouse is limited to half-screen-ing. You can't do a 1/3 or
>> 2/3 via mouse.
>
> yop, that's unfortunate.
>
>>
>> Then there is the problem of your snapping to grid
>> during resize since the window border in the light-themes is pretty
>> much non-existent. We will get a resize grip in the lower right via
>> GTK3 but that still pretty much limits the side on which you can
>> resize so you  have to move the window and then resize it then move it
>> again to where you want it.
>
> true, but we'll get more than a resize grip. there'll be an invisibly
> extended window border, and i think there'll also be efforts to add more
> than the gtk3 handle to the window border, where appropriate, so that you
> can resize your window, grabbing it by any one of its borders.
>
>>
>> That's why I think that a Divvy-windicator approach would be better.
>
> Of course Divvy's feature set makes it "better" than the feature set we are
> currently exposed to.
>
>>
>> It's would be visual so you can now how much space you are giving the
>> window easily and it's mouse accessible.

>
> visual.. yeah, as in "visible". there are a lot of features that become
> "visible" by the change of a flag from =FALSE to =TRUE in compiz, we don't
> need to reimplement a third party proprietary system, which btw is a
> copyright violation, in order to achieve accessible ways of resizing windows
> in the linux desktop.

It's incorrect that implementing a Divvy clone would be a copyright
violation. For that to happen you would actually need to copy the
code. Functionality isn't covered by copyright AFAIK only the specific
product.

yeah, that might be correct, yet i was speaking in more general terms.
The introduction of concepts such as "patent" and "copyright" was only possible, because we know what inbreeding does to a population of thoughts: the population loses its diversity and dies.

Grid itself was inspired by a different system, not Aero Snap, not Divvy, so IF anyone's rights were violated by making a clone, it would most certainly be the rights of he-who-has-the-better-lawyers-first.
Please don't misunderstand my tone, i have nothing against cloning and copying! It's just that my guts are telling me we can do it better than Divvy, because i believe strongly that we won't need a titlebar widget, once we progress a little bit further down the creative path. Our solution will be more automagic than Divvy's, which requires calling an extra widget and opening yet-another-control-interface for window managing.
 
Either way it's a good way to expose window resizing and tiling
functionality to end users. Changing "flags" doesn't mean that we are
exposing the functionality in a user friendly way.

changing flags makes stuff visible to you as a thinker and contributor, i was not thinking of any consumers here. 

> The concept behind this is called Biodiversity¹, without it, we wouldn't
> exist.
>
> ¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodiversity

I fail to see why my suggested approach wouldn't work in Ubuntu. It's
not tied to functionality that exists on a Mac but not on Ubuntu.

i didn't say that, i think your idea is quite brilliant, and i would love to have such functionality, if it's easier to achieve than more organic ideas.

Questions to implement the core functionality desired in this thread:
1 GNOME Terminal resizes in steps, how can we make all windows resize in steps?
2 How would one manipulate the grid for such steps?
3 How would adjacent windows represent their common borders?
4 Will rounded window corners still look nice on tiled windows? (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/694302)
5 Are the current ideas for increasing the grab-area of window borders sufficient? (field testing required)

anyone?