GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 106645
Feature Request - Display window size and position
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
One window manager feature that I have enjoyed for a very long time and sorely miss with Metacity is a very helpful one when I need to make sure that a window is the correct size. I would like to see Metacity display the position of a window when it is clicked on, and have it updated as it is moved. I would also appreciate (more important than the last request) having the window's dimensions displayed as the window is resized. Thanks for a great product! --Jason
note that it does do this for windows with a size grid (like gnome-terminal) There's a closed bug with discussion of doing it in other cases.
See discussion in bug 85213.
Thanks for the information. I would like to see the previous bug reopened or have this bug be the used for this discussion. It is quite helpful to see where a window is positioned and what its dimensions are for when you do custom layouts of windows, not just for web development. In answer to the "geekiness" of that request, then protect it with a gconf key and turn it off by default. If we want the GNOME desktop to be used by power-users and others who would appreciate the additional possible "geeky" functionality, I don't see any reason not to include it. Otherwise, we would lose that potentially large userbase (of which I and many others I know are members of). I certainly can't see that it would be *that* difficult to implement as it has been around for a *long* time in window managers. Thanks!
I need a concrete use-case that isn't totally obscure; I'm not sure what "custom layout of windows" is. Can you explain in more detail when you are wanting to know the exact position/size in pixels?
By custom layout of windows, I mean that sometimes I like to position windows on my desktop at certain locations when I log in. Knowing where the windows are located and what their dimensions are is immensely helpful when providing arguments to the -geometry option in gnome-terminal. There are many times when I want to know the exact size in pixels of my web browser window. When a website indicates that it is best viewed with certain dimensions, it would be very helpful to be able to resize a browser to the proper dimensions. Additionally, whenever I am doing web development myself, I like to be able to resize my web browser to what I expect my target audience to use. Since I use a 1600x1200 desktop and most people have either an 800x600 or 1024x768 desktop, I like to resize my web browser to make sure that my audience will see things as they should. I admit that the first case is fairly obscure, as it only relates to power-users. Since most people (at least for the forseeable) who use *nix and GNOME are more than likely power users, I see a benefit to giving this option to them. Additionally, it could be touted as a "cool" feature that can be enabled for people who may not be power-users but who would like to discover something new that Windows doesn't offer them. If you don't want to do it, would there be a problem with someone coding the change and getting it committed into the metacity tree? Thanks!
I think there are better ways to handle the --geometry case, for example by just remembering terminal positions (patch on another bug that works toward this). But saving terminal positions on login should already be available via "save current setup" on logout. For web development I think the comments in the other bug pretty much cover it. The issue here isn't writing code (I would expect the patch to be trivial and take about 15 minutes), just a matter of whether the WM has a philosophy of allowing UI micromanagement, and metacity doesn't. That's why there's a specification for window managers, so you can choose one you like. ;-) I'll add micromanagement when all the other bugs are closed, perhaps. ;-) *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 85213 ***
This is really useful feature for web development. The bookmarklets don't work well on my mozilla browser. You can even disable the window size changing to prevent it from malicious or badly designed webpages.