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.