GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 594088
Palimpsest GUI impossible to use on small screen
Last modified: 2012-11-12 20:56:25 UTC
Created attachment 142441 [details] Screengrab - Palimpsest GUI on netbook screen Palimpsest has reported SMART errors on my internal flash disk (do they even have SMART?) However the issue is that the GUI is larger than the small screen on my netbook (800x480). Clicking any of the buttons in the GUI, or attempting to resize the left/right panes just flicks the entire interface from left to right. If I repeatedly click in random places, I might hit on a button when it's shifting from side-to-side but it's effectively unusable. The entire window is shifting from half-off-screen to the left, then half-off-screen to the right. I've not seen this behaviour on any other app within Ubuntu Karmic Alpha, so assume it's specific to Palimpsest. Hopefully this can be resolved so I can run further tests on my disk :)
Confirming. palimpsest is more usable, but important buttons still go offscreen i.e. when setting up a blank USB stick on my 1024×600 netbook.
Same Problem. Please implement a scrollbar do make it usable also on 1027x768 and smaller!
Hey, Developer(s) of the disk utility. at minimum please add a scroll bar so that the app serve the purpose for which it is made for on small screen.
actually the interface of 2.29.0 is much much bigger to fit small screens :(
*** Bug 616792 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 163369 [details] [review] A patch for display over screen Put the widget into scrolled window.
would anyone merge it? the same patch is being used in meego where it works.
Please get David's patch into quickly. MeeGo has already accepted it.
Review of attachment 163369 [details] [review]: The patch still applies to current trunk, but it's a bit ugly -- the scrollbars now never go away, but they should if the window is big enough to fit the entire contents.
Committed with the fixed scrollbar policy: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-disk-utility/commit/?id=dcfdaad239372516a4f4826349afe4e613aaedec Thanks!
When I started Palimpsest on my laptop the window didn't have scrollbars because the the "Local Storage" item (with no elements) was selected. When I moved the focus to /dev/sda, scrollbars appeared even though the window, had it been resized, would have fitted. Sorry, but this is the wrong way to solve the problem. The right way to solve this problem involves slight visual redesigns (in particular the buttons are too big) - and also just telling people that they need bigger screens / smaller fonts. E.g. minimum 1024x768. I've reverted the patch for now: http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-disk-utility/commit/?id=dde297e78b41a95f8565bf28803ff0c402790fef and I'm reopening the bug since I do acknowledge that this is annoying for some people even on 1024x768 (especially if you have a lot of disks).
*** Bug 621862 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 628707 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
On the other report, I had suggested other solutions, about the string "Disks has a few damaged sectors", which is sometimes the culprit: - fix French translation, but I suspect other languages might have the same issue - add a translator comment about a max whar width - make the English string shorter, e.g. "A few damaged sectors" - make the HBox not homogeneous, which may not be that ugly actually* The third one is a good start and it's cheap IMHO.
(In reply to comment #11) > When I started Palimpsest on my laptop the window didn't have scrollbars > because the the "Local Storage" item (with no elements) was selected. When I > moved the focus to /dev/sda, scrollbars appeared even though the window, had it > been resized, would have fitted. Sorry, but this is the wrong way to solve the > problem. > > The right way to solve this problem involves slight visual redesigns (in > particular the buttons are too big) - and also just telling people that they > need bigger screens / smaller fonts. E.g. minimum 1024x768. > > I've reverted the patch for now: > > http://git.gnome.org/browse/gnome-disk-utility/commit/?id=dde297e78b41a95f8565bf28803ff0c402790fef > > and I'm reopening the bug since I do acknowledge that this is annoying for some > people even on 1024x768 (especially if you have a lot of disks). For some users, getting a bigger screen is not a solution. Reduced real estate on netbooks and tablets is very common and they are getting more and more popular. Admittedly, no one has displays on their desktop this small but you are cutting out a huge sector of users where Gnome 3 would be an excellent choice and where obtaining a higher resolution screen is not possible.
*** Bug 665646 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
> and I'm reopening the bug since I do acknowledge that this is annoying for some > people even on 1024x768 (especially if you have a lot of disks). I just file a duplicate. Note that this is on a Thinkpad X220, where the screen is bigger than what you give 1366x768, and using the default theme in F-16. I guess that given that the original fix got reverted there is clearly no incentive from an external developer to actually try to fix the problem.
Default size since GNOME 3.4 been 800x600 which seems works fine for a lot of people - it's using the UI real estate much better than pre-3.4. If your screen is smaller than 800x600, you have to either tweak fonts or the toolkit yourself. Closing.