This is a gdm theme issue. The default Fedora theme wraps this text, and adding a manual line break would surely break this one. In addition, what about other languages or display resolutions...

reassigning to gdm to get maintainer opinion, if fedora has some patches they should send them upstream though

It's a fedora style theme. I doubt this should be send back... ;)
But it should be possible to tweak the Ubuntu theme.

It should not be needed to hack every theme for that, either GDM should do it automatically or the translation should use '\n' when required

Somewhat related (but different) fedora bug:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=180117

How does the Fedora theme manage the wrapping?  Is Fedora really hacking GDM, or is this just a matter of setting up the "rect" objects in the theme correctly so that word wrapping is managed?  Could somebody attach the working Fedora theme to this bug report so we could take a look at it. 

Created attachment 59911 [details]
Snapshot of /usr/share/gdm/themes/FedoraBubbles

No hacking. Just a matter of "rect".

Right, it is expected that themes will make intelligent use of rect to manage wrapping.  If the bug submitter can pinpoint a specific enhancement or bugfix that would make GDM theming smarter, then this is a valid bug.  However, I don't think vague "gdmgreeter should be smarter" is a reasonable bug.

Do the default (happygnome, happygnomne-list, circles) themes exhibit this problem?  If so, then please let me know exactly what theme shows this issue.  If the problem is with a different theme, then lets close this bug and take this up with whoever provided the theme.

(In reply to comment #8)
> Do the default (happygnome, happygnomne-list, circles) themes exhibit this
> problem?  If so, then please let me know exactly what theme shows this issue. 

I fear all of them. The Ubuntu theme does look like it's based on these themes, though I didn't have a look at their XML file.

They all have the same problematic section at EOF in common:
    </box>
    <fixed>
      <item type="label" id="pam-error">
        <pos anchor="n" x="50%" y="110%"/>
        <normal color="#000000" font="Sans 12"/>
        <text></text>
      </item>
    </fixed>
  </item>
</greeter>

I toyed around a bit, but didn't get a perfect solution.

Looking at the Fedora theme, it is doing something like the following (note it is putting the timed label and the pam-error in the same wrapping box).  I notice it is using a surrounding "rect" object instead of wrapping the label in a "<fixed> block.  Also the "pam-error" field is defining its width and height to be of size "box" instead of a percentage.  

Does using some techniques like this get word wrapping working with the default (happygnome, happygnome-list, circles) themes?  If so, I'll accept a patch to make these themes enable wrapping (and be a better example to show others how to build themes).

Thanks.


            <item type="rect">
                <pos x="50%" width="448" height="box" anchor="n"/>
                <box ypadding="16" xpadding="10" orientation="vertical">
                    <item type="label" id="pam-error">
                        <pos y="0" x="50%" width="box" height="box" anchor="n"/>
                        <normal font="Bitstream Vera Sans Oblique Bold 11" color="#ff
ffff"/>
                        <text/>
                    </item>
                    <item type="label" id="timed-label">
                        <show type="timed"/>
                        <pos y="0" x="0" width="box" height="box"/>
                        <normal font="Bitstream Vera Sans Bold 11" color="#ffffff"/>
                        <stock type="timed-label"/>
                    </item>
                </box>
            </item>

(In reply to comment #10)
> Does using some techniques like this get word wrapping working with the
> default (happygnome, happygnome-list, circles) themes?

This works of course. But it's hard to find a good position for the wrapped text. There isn't that much space between pam-box and caps-lock-warning, and you risk to overlap them in non-standard situations. Perhaps the caps-lock-warning could be moved to somewhere else, or it is much easier -- I never looked at any theme until now... ;)

I think setting up the theme to properly use "rect" objects to handle wrapping is the correct way to go.  I don't think expecting gdmsetup to "magically" correct themes that aren't written to manage word-warp is really possible or workable.

I'm sorry to hear that the default GDM themes don't support word wrapping very well.  I would happily accept a patch from someone that makes the themes look and work better.  It's fine with me if the themes are redesigned (like moving the caps lock warning) if it makes the themes work better.

Brian, we have problems with wrapping/overlapping in the FedoraBubbles theme,
too. 

Two bugs are: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=180117
and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=183440

It seems to me that the greeter is not re-size-allocating when the pam
strings change at runtime ? Is that true ?

Matthias, have you tried using the suggestions above to make sure that the
theme properly contains the labels in containers that are specified properly?
You should be able to use the examples above to test.

If it is still failing, it might be because GDM is simply broken and doesn't check the theme and resize when displaying the messages.  If so, we would need to fix GDM to do this.  I would accept a patch to make GDM smarter in this way.

Does this fix your problem?

*** Bug 152192 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

No, the greeter is simply not re-allocating at all. At least I have not been
able to make it grow the box when the pam label changes its size.

If you could share the theme with me (or a theme that shows the problem), I'll take a look at trying to fix it

the theme is the FedoraBubbles theme. I'll attach a tarball

Created attachment 61068 [details]
FedoraBubbles.tar.gz

I forgot to mention how you can see the problem:

1) run the greeter in a Japanese locale, where the Username: label
   is much shorter than the Password: label. The translated password
   label gets wrapped, when we would rather have the box grow

2) enable timed login and enter a wrong password. The "auth failed"
   message overlaps the "timed login" message.

Problem similar:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=401019

Please close bug, I work with Gnome 2.30 and change interface. Not problem in Gnome 2.30.

Thanks,
Cristian Aravena

The new GDM doesn't support the gdmgreeter theme format.  Closing this bug since it is unlikely to get addressed, especially unless this is a really critical issue and someone is willing to provide a patch.