[Usability] optimised window placement and wide screens

[John Keller <jkeller matchbox fr>]

I keep pretty close tabs on the progress of Gnome development, but only 
recently switched over to 2.6 for daily use (yes, still one version 
behind). I've only occasionally piped up during my long lurking on this 
list, making this my first post in a way. Forgive me if this subject was 
already covered here or elsewhere.

I'm often running into a situation where a dialog box will open up on 
the opposite edge of the screen from where my cursor is.

Because my screen is not only wide, but high-res (1920x1200), I don't 
work with maximised windows. This makes them "feel" better, more 
manageable, but it leaves me room to work with a small row of icons on 
my desktop. (Yes, I also know about and use virtual desktops to access 
the desktop.)

However, I keep running into this situation: I open a window, Metacity 
centers it. Opening a second window finds it left-aligned. When I close 
the first window, I then have a gap on the right side of the screen.

Metacity notices this space, and apparently thinks "aha, a perfect 
amount of room in which to nestle that 'open' dialog box". So, I keep 
getting dialog boxes placed directly *opposite* from my cursor (and/or 
menu item) and visual focus. This seems to me counter-productive.

Shouldn't the window manager take into consideration the relationship of 
parent-child windows? Perhaps centering dialogs on the appropriate 
window, or similar to the sheets in Mac OS X (aside from the fact that 
Gnome dialogs aren't modal). Instead, I consistently get worst-case 
placement for dialog boxes - unless I manually move the parent window to 
be closer to the center of the screen.

I don't know Metacity's internals, so I may very well be overlooking a 
conscious decision on the part of the programmers. In any case, I hope 
this churns up some discussion, and possibly some ideas.

- John