GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 643394
Too big to fit in 1024 pixels screen width, cannot maximize window
Last modified: 2012-09-02 04:19:34 UTC
Due to the fact that we added the "Effect properties" basetab, pitivi now has a "three columns" design, which does not fit into 1024x768 screens anymore because it is too wide. While designing for *lower* than 1024x768 (or 1024x600) is unreasonable, 1024x768 as a minimum target seems important, considering that about 10% of our users (according to website stats) are running at that resolution. Ideally we should be able to make the design fit. A potential solution is by solving bug #643392, which would allow the user to arrange a "two column" layout. Another possibility is to detect the resolution at runtime and use a "two column" layout if the resolution is not wide enough.
Are you sure about that? When I worked on the effects, I checked that it was feeting under 1000 * 700 pixels. I also tried here, and it fits with a minimum of 968 * 638 px.
I just realized, I think the reason is that the gtk infobar contents are wider in locales such as French (English is a pretty compact language). Not sure what to do about this.
Currently it happens again in c2e18ca075... because in the French locale, the infobar on the left is translated but not the one on the right (in the effect properties), and the one on the right is not "long enough" so GTK doesn't wrap the label... and thus causes it to take more space than if the string was longer. However, running with LANG=C makes the string on the left shorter, so it is not a problem to English users. Furthermore, once this is fully translated in French, it may not be a problem anymore because the strings may be longer in French (and thus will wrap). It's still quite fragile, but at this point I'm not sure what we can do about it.
Filed bug 650929 on GTK+ about this.
I just want to say that I run at the resolution 1024x768 and I am experiencing this problem in English with Ubuntu 11.04 Natty. This problem is a lot more annoying in unity as it causes me to make the launcher expose it-self. I know I can just not run it maximized but I just wanted to make sure that you were aware that it happened in English as well. If you were already aware... sorry It is late here and might have missed something. Brian
*** Bug 656209 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 661061 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
A quick explanation for people requesting that we fit pitivi on netbook resolutions (<1024x768): the lowest screen resolution I'm targetting is 1024x768 because it is still quite common and workable. Based on the website statistics with a sample of 130 000 visitors over the current year, only 3% use the 1024x600 resolution (a total of 5% use <1024x768, including smartphones) while 9% use 1024x768 (the rest is all high resolution). As you can imagine: - There is a limit to the amount of widgets we can cram in a tight space - You can always toggle off the toolbars and use fullscreen mode - I don't want to penalize 97% of users for the benefit of 3% of users - In general, netbooks are not fit to be serious machines for video editing - We have a limited amount of manpower to work on this. The main UI workflow is not something you reinvent every day. There is a limit to the amount of optimization we can afford to do for a minority. I'm open to suggestions on how to make our UI more compact, however: - It needs to be concrete. "It should fit in netbook screens" is too vague. - It must not be detrimental to usability
I understand your answer. So here is my concern : As a 'basic' user of Pitivi what I miss with the current oversized GUI for my undersized computer is the vertical scroll of the timeline. I have to move the whole window to access it (then I'm missing 1/3 of the clip widget and the 'project' menu). If I look at the default full size window the 'missing' part is not so huge. I don't think it needs a full UI update, maybe it could work just by a moving some things a little bit closer, downsizing some widgets etc... Shouldn't it be possible to squeeze a bit the preview window ? put the rewind/play/forward icons closer ? Maybe put a horizontal scroll on the effect widget to have a smaller widget ?
Created attachment 198942 [details] Pitivi main window on a 1024x600 resolution netbook
I can totally appreciate the sentiment of comment #8 but to be honest, in this case, there's no real reason why Pitivi couldn't be made to work on a 1024x600 screen. The only thing really preventing Pitivi's window being maximised on my 1024x600 netbook is the window's minimum *width*, which seems to be about 30 pixels over the edge of the screen. The height is literally about 5 pixels over the edge and is barely noticeable. This seems to make the points about 768 vs. 600 somewhat irrelevant, since logically 1024x768 screens should still be suffering the same issue of insufficient width anyway. If this is just a case of slightly reducing the minimum window size, surely it wouldn't affect larger resolutions. It's self evident, looking at the tiny amount that the window overhangs the screen, that no interface rearrangments are necessary.
> Shouldn't it be possible to squeeze a bit the preview window ? > put the rewind/play/forward icons closer ? Not really. As you can see if you hover the mouse over the buttons, the buttons are already crammed together with no spacing. The problem you guys are seeing in the screenshot in attachment 198942 [details] is bug 650929, which I'm not sure there's anything we can do about on our side... It might vanish with GTK 3, but I'm not holding my breath on that one.
So would fixing bug 650929 also fix this one? As it stands, maximise is currently broken for 1024x600 AND 1024x768 but as far as I can see, the minimum height is just barely over 600px. Even if supporting 1024x600 isn't much of a priority - it seems that fixing the problems on 1024x768 would basically fix 1024x600 without much further effort. Or am I missing something...?
Yes, basically the main problem right now is with the infobar widget not wrapping its text, and it seems very much like a GTK bug. Still waiting for the GTK guys to reply to that bug report, or to see what will happen when pitivi is ported to GTK3 (ie: if the problem has been fixed in GTK3 already)
*** Bug 674891 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Created attachment 213500 [details] screenshot in GTK3 Good news: from a simple test script I've been able to compare GTK2 and GTK3, and GTK3 does wrap the text for our given string length. Bad news: bug 675513.
Currently, in the GTK3 branch of PiTiVi, I'm able to squeeze it into 1024x600 (barely). With some additional tweaks like allowing tabs to be scrollable, I can squeeze it under a thousand pixels wide. I've got a commit that fixes this.
commit 508dab0a75e96a2b15df4f41ccd03aabb2aabede Author: Jean-François Fortin Tam <nekohayo@gmail.com> Date: Wed Aug 22 00:56:59 2012 -0400 When space is constrained, allow notebook tabs to scroll Combined with improved text wrapping in infobars in GTK3, this fixes bug #643394.