GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 648279
More informative window title/caption
Last modified: 2018-05-22 14:12:38 UTC
Please provide more informative window title. When working with different PDF files that have the same title, it can be confusing, which one you are looking at in evince because the window title (the caption in window decoration) and what is shown with ALT+TAB is only the title. Properties (ALT+ENTER) can provide information on the file name but that is usually truncated for long path names into /home/username/Documents/projects/... and resizing of the dialogue is needed to figure out again which document you are looking at. Please offer in the view menu the following checkable menu items: - File Name in Caption - Base Path in Caption By default, both are switched off, as is the current situation. When the first is enabled, the window caption will go from: Title to Title - filename.pdf When the only the second is enabled, the window caption will go from: Title to Title - (/tmp) or Title - (~/Documents/project) the latter will be in case the base path contains /home/username (this is also the case in gedit). When both are enabled, the window caption will go from: Title to Title - filename.pdf (/tmp) or Title - filename.pdf (~/Documents/project) Of course provide the necessary shotcuts/hotkeys too for the two menu items. Implementing this will enable all users to quickly determine which document one is looking at, when documents have identical titles. This will increase user satisfaction a lot when switching between documents with identical titles.
Why do you want a "filename in caption" menu? We already show either the filename or the filename + the title when the title is set... About showing the path, I guess we could show the path automatically when you have several files with the same filename open.
Filename + title is not shown for the version for which this is reported. Also, I don't talk a menu but a menu item in the View menu, just to be sure you know what I mean. About your last sentence, this would be impossible when I have opened multiple instances of evince from different users or even different machines, displaying on the same monitor.
(In reply to comment #2) > Filename + title is not shown for the version for which this is reported. Last stable evince version is 3.0. All new bugs are considered against the latest stable version. I don't want to bikeshed again about this kind of topic. We are following the latest HIG (except for the fact that Evince does not have a status bar, so we don't show the path in the status bar), so yes, we should probably show somewhere somehow the full path when different documents with the same filename are open (this is what the HIG points out, but it is explicit about the status bar, which we don't have). This is the part of the bug I consider to be valid. > Also, > I don't talk a menu but a menu item in the View menu, just to be sure you know > what I mean. > I know what you mean. But we are not going to add these menu items to Evince. Still, as I say above, I am dealing with the part of your proposal that makes sense to me, according to the HIG. > About your last sentence, this would be impossible when I have opened multiple > instances of evince from different users or even different machines, displaying > on the same monitor. Yes, it would be impossible, but this does not justify adding these options to the view menu. For instance, when you have an X app running on a machine which is different from the machine where the X server is running, window managers add (on machine.domain) to the window title so you can recognize the window comes from other machine.
Thanks for you reply. Note, the following is no criticism, just that I understand that it is not easy to report/test against latest stable for most people. If only bugs against latest stable are considered, please provide a PPA for Ubuntu latest stable and previous stable where people can install evince latest stable from. Some software packages have simply too many dependencies to easily build the latest stable. Let alone for beginners/non-programmers to do this. Especially when it depends on a newer version of GNOME/GTK it is difficult for end-users to have a look if e.g. 3.0 has fixed their bug and start using that version immediately. If 3.0 already displays filename, I'm already very satisfied. Please consider offering a menu item option to show the path in the window caption. By default it is switched off, just like gedit is doing in the caption, as described above and HIG complient (which I'm reading at the moment :)).
Of course(In reply to comment #4) > Thanks for you reply. Note, the following is no criticism, just that I > understand that it is not easy to report/test against latest stable for most > people. > Don't worry, I just try to explain you how the development of GNOME works. Of course it is not easy to report/test latest stable, since usually distributions package the latest stable some months after they are released by GNOME. That's why we see if the bug is still valid on the latest/stable. > If only bugs against latest stable are considered, please provide a PPA for > Ubuntu latest stable and previous stable where people can install evince latest > stable from. We are upstream, so this kind of request should go to your distribution, not here. Ubuntu has a GNOME3 PPA where you can probably find evince 3.0 (Have no idea, not a ubuntu user). If not, GNOME bugzilla is not the place to complain, sorry. > > Some software packages have simply too many dependencies to easily build the > latest stable. Let alone for beginners/non-programmers to do this. Especially > when it depends on a newer version of GNOME/GTK it is difficult for end-users > to have a look if e.g. 3.0 has fixed their bug and start using that version > immediately. > > If 3.0 already displays filename, I'm already very satisfied. > > Please consider offering a menu item option to show the path in the window > caption. By default it is switched off, just like gedit is doing in the > caption, as described above and HIG complient (which I'm reading at the moment > :)). We are not going to add a menu option for this. I just leave this bug open so we can display the path when several documents have the same filename.
Thanks for the extra explanation and looking into this.
Leaving this open just for: ---------------------------- > Please consider offering a menu item option to show the path in the window > caption. By default it is switched off, just like gedit is doing in the > caption, as described above and HIG complient (which I'm reading at the moment > :)). We are not going to add a menu option for this. I just leave this bug open so we can display the path when several documents have the same filename. ---------------------------- Beware that this might conflict with https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=711078
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message -- This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity. You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/evince/issues/214.