[Glade-devel] Window width and height request

[tvb at gnome.org (Tristan Van Berkom)]

On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 23:20 +0200, Vincent Geddes wrote:
> Hi Tristan,
>
> On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 10:32 -0500, Tristan Van Berkom wrote: 
> > The workspace widgets used to set the default-width/default-height of
> > toplevel GtkWindows automatically, this functionality was temporarily 
> > introduced for the initial demos of the embedded workspace, there
> > were/are plans for making properties change upon workspace resizes -
> > but its most important that we dont screw with
> > default-width/default-height without telling the user.
>
> My implementation of the resizing was never meant to be temporary, at
> least for me. In fact it was working well and was quite robust.

Yes we planned on that feature, but it had to be reimplemented - we knew
this from the start - thats why I'm saying temporary, it was temporarily
included at the time "as is" - but "as is" was altogether unacceptable
because it changes properties without notifying the user (not to
mention that the actual window resizing was driven by the properties 
themselves - however that is fixed now).

Consider that if the user wants to save a toplevel without specifying
a default-width/height (i.e. "the normal use case") - the user has to be
especially carefull to never resize the window in the workspace - or to
always remember to disable those properties before saving - sorry but
thats not an option.

> > The behaviour I was looking for was:
> >   - If the user checked/enabled the default-width/height, then
> >     effect the default-width/height
> >   - Else if the user checked/enabled the width/height-request, then
> >     effect the width/height-request
> >   - Else do nothing
>
> I am uncomfortable with this for many reasons. 
>
> Firstly, why would users ever want to set the width/height request on
> GtkWindow's anyway? This is bad usage, and the GTK+ docs clearly state
> as much [2]. If the user is misinformed or has some specialised needs,
> then she is quite free to change the width/height request in the
> property editor.

If the user went and explicitly checked the box enableing the
width/height-request properties - we must assume the user knows
what they are doing - also consider that ultimately toplevels in
the workspace are not nescisarily GtkWindows (thats just a current
shortcomming)

> Secondly, it is modal behaviour (i.e if X then "user must do Y" else
> "user must do Z"). This makes it hard for the user to carry out tasks,
> as the process of performing modal tasks is generally more confusing and
> complicated for the user (rather like the modal behaviour of Vi).
>
> Thirdly, this behaviour implies that users must understand what these
> mysterious GTK+ API properties actually mean, and why setting a default
> size is recommended over setting a size request.

It is not recommended to set a default size or a size request, if the
user knows what they are doing, they might use these properties.

Cheers,
                   -Tristan