GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 721931
Settings window and dialogs are not resizable.
Last modified: 2017-03-06 12:55:42 UTC
I generally like Gnome 3.x, it looks good to me. But many interface elements in Gnome 3 started to use "key hole metaphor", which is awful. For example, gnome-control-center aka "Settings" window is not resizable. For "All settings" it is not a big issue because all the items are directly visible in the window, but... click on "Notifications" item shows notification settings. There is a long list of applications there. Only a small part of the list is directly visible. To look through the list I have to scroll it. It is not convenient, I would like to see entire list, but window is *not* resizable. This is "key hole metaphor" in action: I have a huge screen but cannot utilize its space and have to look into data through small hole! (Moreover: "Notifications" have more items to show than "All Settings", but "Notifications" window is smaller than "All Settings". Why??) The same issue appears in many other locations: long list of keyboard shortcuts in Keyboard settings, long list of users in Users settings, long list of available images in "Select Background" dialog, long list of online accounts, no-so-long list of Universal Access (but this list does not fit window anyway). The same issue appears in Keyboard settings. Select "Custom Shortcuts", then create a new custom shortcut. "Custom Shortcut" dialog is *tiny* and not resizable. Please let me (and other users) freely resize all these windows and dialogs. Avoid using fixed-size windows, please. Do not force us to look trough key holes.
I totally agree with that. I'd rather say, that the fixed window size of all settings dialogues and the gnome-control-center it self is the worst design decision in Gnome 3.x. It's not only that it is uncomfortable to have a small window on a huge screen, but it is worst, if you have very small screen. Some times you have to use ALT+MouseClick than to be able to reach the icons on the bottom of the control center.
*** Bug 723575 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 725740 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
FYI, we are working on switching to a new Settings shell for 3.26, which will have a resizable window. https://wiki.gnome.org/Design/Apps/Settings#Tentative_Design You can already run a testing/preview of it by launching gnome-control-center-alt from the source.
New shell is already being tracked in another bug. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 773094 ***