GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 130821
Request: modifier key to enable showing dimensions when resizing
Last modified: 2008-10-06 01:17:34 UTC
When a modifier key is held down while resizing windows, Metacity should display the window size in the same form it currently does (resize popup box) when resizing terminal windows and the like. Having this functionality controlled by a modifier key enables it to be available for the small number of users who need it, without the cruft of a configuration key or the annoyance of having it always showing. It seems to me that this is in keeping with the treatment of other 'advanced' features, such as window snapping when moving windows, that can only be implemented with any ease within the window manager, that most users will not need to know about, but that are of immense use to a small number of users. I will post a patch, made against the latest release (2.6.3) and using Shift as the modifier key, which demonstrates that the change can be made with a minimum of extra code; a little logic code and some changes to the internal API (which actually make it more symmetric) are all that are needed.
Created attachment 23094 [details] [review] Demonstration patch to enable resize popup when Shift pressed
seems simple enough. Really the only people who would need such a thing are web developers, but I'm a web developer so I'm all for it :-). Perhaps we should use Ctrl though since Shift sort of already means snap to edge, at least for moving.
Yes, Ctrl would be better - I've just discovered that when resizing by keyboard Ctrl makes resizing occur in single pixel increments (while Shift does something very strange); a resize popup box comes under the same conceptual category of 'fine control' as does resizing in single pixels.
no kidding it does "something strange". That's pretty funny. See Bug 130834.
Note that this is related to bug 85213, which I mention for the benefit of those who are searching through bugs later (something I do often). The main difference is the use of a modifier key to enable the feature.
Any news?
*** Bug 160649 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I really don't see any reason why this patch shouldn't go in, assuming it still applies. Not sure how it's sat here for 505 days now.
Comment on attachment 23094 [details] [review] Demonstration patch to enable resize popup when Shift pressed I doubt it still applies, we should have looked at it before. I think the patch could be made a lot shorter by storing the "force resize popup" flag as part of the grab op info in the display struct, rather than passing it all around the code. I could be wrong but it's worth a try.
*** Bug 468918 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I'd like to mention another use case for this feature. I want to resize a video player window such that it matches the native size of the video, because I'm going to take screenshots. Since the video is as large as my screen, the window won't open large enough, and in fullscreen mode screenshoting doesn't work right. I'm sure there are other solutions for this situation, but that's not a good reason not to allow metacity to help out here.
as mentioned on bug 85213, shift doesn't work because it already does something else (edge snap). So the patch needs updating for that and for bit-rot due to metacity changes.