Re: moving windows above the top panel

[Elijah Newren <newren gmail com>]

On Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:55:18 -0800, Eugenia Loli-Queru
<eloli hotmail com> wrote:
> > This is the wrong approach. The window manager is responsible for 
> > making things fit on screen. It alone has the last world under ICCCM on
> > window sizes.
> 
> What if the window can not be resized because it was coded that way? 
> And if it can be resized, not all widgets will be visible (or, in the case of Qt,
> it will show some Really Ugly (TM) scrolling bars or scrolling arrows). This
> is hardly a solution. The real problem here is the fact that the developers
> don't know how to write good-looking  and practical apps. A window 
> manager can and only should do so much.

You are correct that Metacity should obey minimize size hints set by
the application.  However, Metacity can and should do much more than
it is currently doing--if the minimize size hints are not restrictive,
Metacity should clamp windows to the size of the workarea when they
appear (as well as make sure that the window is actually placed in the
viewable workarea).

> > If you replace metacity with a window manager you'll find a lot of these
> > problems go away because the dialogues will fit when the window
> > manager says "tough it will be this small" although that depends on the
> > toolkit and application. Some apps just have absurdly large
> > configuration dialogues.
> 
> Exactly. The bug is primarily the app developer's here. Apps and their
> dialogs must not measure bigger than 720x500, no matter the toolkit they
> use.

I agree that applications need to be usable when sized to such a value
(i.e. apps should be written to be usable at that size and set a
minimum size hint no bigger than the range you suggest).  I disagree
that the default size must be no bigger than that size and I also
disagree that this is primarily the app developer's problem.  I
believe most applications are usable at that size and that Metacity
should have smarter behavior here.  (And yes, I will be putting effort
where my mouth is)

Elijah