Hi;
Another possible bug, in the continuing series.
Who or what is responsible for positioning newly opened windows in Fedora 6 and Gnome 2.16? Is it Fedora, Xorg, Gnome, MetaCity, or the application.
It is very annoying after a while to have to move almost every new window from the top left corner to the centre of my screen. Is there any way to set up my system so that every window opens centred? It should be an option. Some may dislike the fact that the top window covers up other smaller windows. I am not one of those. I would like everything to start centred.
When applications expand from an iconfication on the panel they can retain their positioning. Why can't they when they are newly opened?
There used to be a geometry option for applications, but it hardly exists anymore. (Never really worked anyways). To me there should be an hierarchy of options. First a global positioning option, that can be overridden by an application option that can be overridden by a last used option.
I forget in which Fedora core this changed, but removing options for the user and allowing only one way, the developers way, has an M$ feel to it.
It strikes me that Gconfig-editors is the proper place to provide these choices.
On 22Dec2006 16:02, William Case billlinux@rogers.com wrote: | Who or what is responsible for positioning newly opened windows in | Fedora 6 and Gnome 2.16? Is it Fedora, Xorg, Gnome, MetaCity, or the | application.
Metacity - it is the window manager.
Firstly, its behaviour can be adjusted to suit your desires (like all things: up to a point).
Secondly, if you don't like what it can be told to do, you can run any of several other window managers.
"man metacity" (you _did_ try that, didn't you, since you knew to ask about metacity) says:
CONFIGURATION metacity configuration can be found under Preferences->Windows and Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts on the menu-panel. Advanced configura- tion can be achieved directly through gconf editing (gconf-editor or gconftool-2).
I don't run metacity; I run FVWM, my other runs icewm. Metacity is very simple but not amazingly flexible. FVWM is extremely flexible. There are othe window managers available in between. Several are mentioned here:
http://freshmeat.net/browse/56/
Experiment.
| [... various desires ...]
Sounds like you need to move to a window manager that offers more control.
Cheers,
Hi Cameron;
On Sat, 2006-12-23 at 10:28 +1100, Cameron Simpson wrote:
On 22Dec2006 16:02, William Case billlinux@rogers.com wrote: | Who or what is responsible for positioning newly opened windows in | Fedora 6 and Gnome 2.16? Is it Fedora, Xorg, Gnome, MetaCity, or the | application.
Well, you answered my question. Positioning for MetaCity is not a bug. For Fedora it might be in that positioning for Window Manager strikes mu as an essential service. It it isn't provided Fedora Core should look to installing with a new manager.
Metacity - it is the window manager.
Firstly, its behaviour can be adjusted to suit your desires (like all things: up to a point).
Secondly, if you don't like what it can be told to do, you can run any of several other window managers.
"man metacity" (you _did_ try that, didn't you, since you knew to ask about metacity) says:
CONFIGURATION metacity configuration can be found under Preferences->Windows and Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts on the menu-panel. Advanced configura- tion can be achieved directly through gconf editing (gconf-editor or gconftool-2).
I have checked MetaCity three ways to Sunday. None of the above mentioned configuration tools (all actually different versions of the same backend) deals with window positioning
I don't run metacity; I run FVWM, my other runs icewm. Metacity is very simple but not amazingly flexible. FVWM is extremely flexible. There are othe window managers available in between. Several are mentioned here:
Thanks for the site. Hadn't seen the /browse/56/ location before.
Experiment.
I will.
| [... various desires ...]
Sounds like you need to move to a window manager that offers more control.
Is there any big cost or loss in efficiency by using FVWM or icewm?
Cheers,
On 22Dec2006 21:12, William Case billlinux@rogers.com wrote: | > | Who or what is responsible for positioning newly opened windows in | > | Fedora 6 and Gnome 2.16? Is it Fedora, Xorg, Gnome, MetaCity, or the | > | application. | > Metacity - it is the window manager. | > | Well, you answered my question. Positioning for MetaCity is not a bug. | For Fedora it might be in that positioning for Window Manager strikes mu | as an essential service. It it isn't provided Fedora Core should look | to installing with a new manager.
Well, I'm sure it ships with a few window managers, and it is empirically true that nothing suits everyone.
[...] | I have checked MetaCity three ways to Sunday. None of the above | mentioned configuration tools (all actually different versions of the | same backend) deals with window positioning
Ah well then.
| > Sounds like you need to move to a window manager that offers more | > control. | | Is there any big cost or loss in efficiency by using FVWM or icewm?
Not really. They are both configured via a dot-file in your home directory.
You can install fvwm and maybe icewm with yum.
Both are small and efficient. FVWM is the more configurable of the two, and arguably the most configurable window manager out there. Yum will probably install a 2.4 series fvwm; I run a 2.5 (development) version, which is very stable.
Out of the box the default fvwm config is very boring, but if you look at the screenshots page at www.fvwm.org you can see much is possible.
If you start fvwm from a terminal window with the "-r" option it should cleanly take over from your metacity wm. That way you can experiment without damaging your default desktop config.
Cheers,
On 23Dec2006 15:19, I wrote: | If you start fvwm from a terminal window with the "-r" option it should | cleanly take over from your metacity wm. That way you can experiment | without damaging your default desktop config.
I should add that this way will also let you easily see any syntax complaints it makes about your config file.
William Case wrote:
It is very annoying after a while to have to move almost every new window from the top left corner to the centre of my screen. Is there any way to set up my system so that every window opens centred? It should be an option. Some may dislike the fact that the top window covers up other smaller windows. I am not one of those. I would like everything to start centred.
This is one of my 'pet peeves' of linux. I second that motion.
Perhaps in the days of 800x600 screen resolution, it wasn't so much of an issue. I'd say that it's a serious shortcoming now.
In my short time with linux, I've noticed that saves directory window positions - why not with applications?
Thank you!
On Saturday 23 December 2006 07:37, Michael Klinosky wrote:
William Case wrote:
It is very annoying after a while to have to move almost every new window from the top left corner to the centre of my screen. Is there any way to set up my system so that every window opens centred? It should be an option. Some may dislike the fact that the top window covers up other smaller windows. I am not one of those. I would like everything to start centred.
This is one of my 'pet peeves' of linux. I second that motion.
Perhaps in the days of 800x600 screen resolution, it wasn't so much of an issue. I'd say that it's a serious shortcoming now.
In my short time with linux, I've noticed that saves directory window positions - why not with applications?
Thank you!
KDE does provide this facility. Right click on the title bar, chose Advanced, and then select either Special Window Setting or Special Application Setting, and you get all sorts of options including locking down the window location and size. -- cmg
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Bill Case -
Cameron Simpson -
Carroll Grigsby -
Michael Klinosky