GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 163023
Better window resizing behaviour using the mouse
Last modified: 2009-02-02 12:32:49 UTC
What about this? I will explain the behaviour I have in mind, not the actual behaviour at the time of writing. Imagine this window, placed anywhere on your desktop (not maximized): +----------+ | | | | b | a | +----------+ The a is where the mouse pointer currently is. 1. Use alt-right click to pop up the window menu (right clicking the title bar also works, but this example illustrates my idea a bit better). 2. Now choose "Resize". A 4-direction mouse cursor appears. The mouse cursor jumps to the center of the window. (Why? It's just confusing for me.) 3. Move your mouse pointer out of the window, to the left side. Left click once. (Currently, clicking the mouse cancels the resize operation) 4. The window resizes to the location of the mouse pointer. Example: +----------+ +-------------+ | | | | | | becomes | | b<----a | b<----a | +----------+ +-------------+ Similarly, if the mouse pointer was located top left of the original window, the window resizes both horizontally and vertically, so that the top left corner matches the position of the mouse. I hope I've well-formulated my idea.
The purpose of the Resize menu item is to resize using the keyboard - would you really use it with the mouse?
Yes, I would most definitely use this functionality. It allows users to resize windows quickly in 1 direction (instead of 2) with a mouse; that's not possible using alt + middle mouse button dragging. Example: I use a lot of vertically maximized windows (logfile tails, webbrowser windows, pdf viewer, ...), but I'm not able to quickly resize these without changing the height of the window. I find this rather strange: why does the mouse cursor change if it isn't even usable? The mouse doesn't do anything right now in resize mode; it will only cancel the resize operation, so no other functionality is lost by implementing this RFE. Besides, the move option in the same menu works fine with a mouse, so for a consistent user experience, this is surely a good idea.
Hmmm...looks like Wouter and I were typing up responses at the same time (mid-air collision, oh boy) and we cover the same basic stuff, but I'll send anyway: The menu item says "resize" so having it mean "resize with keyboard" seems misleading. Especially since the "move" menu item works with the mouse and is useful. So I believe that we should either support it, or make it so that none of the menu items work with the mouse (meaning also that if the user moves the mouse around after selecting resize, that the little icon doesn't move at all). See also bug 91459 which you filed. ;-)
I'm not necessarily arguing against doing this, I just want to understand whether someone will use the feature and how, or if we're just saying "it may as well do something when you click." I wouldn't have guessed for example that resize in only one direction is the reason you'd find this useful. The reason the cursor changes for keyboard is for feedback that you're in a special mode, and as you go through the stages of the mode. i.e. you start in "choose a direction" mode and then you push a key and enter "resize the selected edge" mode. We don't have to use the cursor for this but there should be some feedback. There should most likely be some feedback when using the mouse to resize too, e.g. you should be able to tell whether a click will resize in one or both directions. Well really you should be able to tell whether it will resize at all. There are various ways we could do this.
I think this bug is no longer relevant. (In reply to comment #2) > It allows users to resize windows quickly in 1 direction (instead > of 2) with a mouse; that's not possible using alt + middle mouse > button dragging. In current Metacity versions (I'm using 2.24.x) this is possible: when the mouse cursor is positioned in any "border area" of a window, i.e. anything except area 5 in this picture: +---+---+---+ | 1 | 2 | 3 | +---+---+---+ | 4 | 5 | 6 | +---+---+---+ | 7 | 8 | 9 | +---+---+---+ ...and you alt-middle drag, the window changes in a single direction (1, 3, 7, and 9) or two directions (2, 4, 6, and 8). > The mouse doesn't do anything right now in resize mode; it will only > cancel the resize operation, Right now the window resizes in the direction you move the mouse to. Useful. Hence, I'm marking this bug as FIXED.