[Ayatana] What's up with all the non-resizable windows?

["Stefanos A." <stapostol@xxxxxxxxx>]

I just installed 11.10, just to be assaulted by ugly non-resizable windows. Why, oh why?

Off-hand, I recall the official installer, which cannot be resized when the "show details" area does not fit inside the window. This happens in the "downloading packages" and " installing packages" parts of the installation - since you can't resize the window, you cannot see what actions are being taken by the installer.

The new "System Settings" control panel also fits the bill. This is *especially* aggravating, since the window is a tad too big for a 1366x768 or 1280x800 screen (that's what most laptops use). Today, I had an issue with a misconfigured keyboard shortcut, so I opened an internet article that described the fix. In such occasions, I arrange the browser window and the configuration window side-by-side, so I can refer to the article while fixing the issue. Or that's what I used to do, since the new settings window *cannot be resized* to fit side-by-side on my monitor. It's always there, taking up lots of space, *covering* the article with the instructions I need.

What is this new fad? Microsoft abandoned modal/non-resizable windows after WinXP. Apple just added more resize borders in their latest OS. Are we really going for some retro 90's UI style with absolute coordinates and fixed element placement? Is there any design rationale behind these things, or is this just a programmer cockup (hey, flowing styles in GTK are hard, so let me go out of my way to make everything FIXED).

Yes, I'm THAT frustrated by this change!