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Bug 735648 - Headerbar (client side window decorations)
Headerbar (client side window decorations)
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: rhythmbox
Classification: Other
Component: User Interface
3.0.x
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: RhythmBox Maintainers
RhythmBox Maintainers
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2014-08-29 00:47 UTC by Jean-François Fortin Tam
Modified: 2018-05-24 18:22 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Jean-François Fortin Tam 2014-08-29 00:47:47 UTC
It would be great if Rhythmbox got rid of its redundant titlebar (which repeats the artist and song title) and moved everything from the toolbar area into a headerbar widget set as the client-side window decoration. Would save space and fit with the rest of gnome applications. Thanks!
Comment 1 foss.freedom 2014-08-30 15:55:54 UTC
That is fine for Gnome-Shell users.

For those of us that love rhythmbox but dont use Gnome-Shell, client-side window decorations standout like a sore thumb.

Thus - if someone provides a patch - please ensure that CSWD only applies to Gnome-Shell or at least provide a means for use to have an application that fits with the window manager of our choice.
Comment 2 foss.freedom 2014-12-24 19:56:10 UTC
@Jean-Francois

  I've been having a little play in this area whilst creating an external plugin that hides the current large toolbar area.

  It currently in the headerbar branch - if this is something you want to play around with, feel free to checkout the code here:

 - https://github.com/fossfreedom/alternative-toolbar/tree/headerbar

Screenshot showing the client-side decorated version of rhythmbox is here:

 - https://xpressubuntu.wordpress.com/2014/12/23/show-and-hide-the-main-toolbar-in-rhythmbox/
Comment 3 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2014-12-25 04:12:04 UTC
I find it impressive that you've put action into your words, and that you managed to do this with an extension. That's pretty cool :)

Gave it a try out of curiosity. It mostly works, here are some bits that are broken with your headerbar plugin branch:
- The progress/position indicator's colors don't work with a dark theme variant
- The play/pause button state is inconsistent
- The song artist & title not only shows above the position indicator, it also shows on the right, near the close button. Maybe you need to unset the window title?
- Showing a bigger version of the cover art when hovering the mouse on the cover image on the headerbar doesn't work
- Your branch adds a padding/spacing around all the widgets. I personally think it shouldn't, that's not its job and it looks bad with the default/official GTK theme.
- The song title breaks (does not update) when some characters like "&" are present?

But hey, you can say it's 90% there ;)

I wonder if the rhythmbox maintainer will like the plugin route, or prefer to do it directly in the core app. To be 100% frank, as a user I don't see the point of having two UIs (with/without the headerbar), other applications (pretty much all maintained gtk+ applications, at least) are massively moving towards CSDs/headerbars anyway. Soon you'll find (as you might start to see already) that anything that does *not* use a headerbar sticks out like a sore thumb! My 2¢.
Comment 4 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2014-12-25 04:15:35 UTC
Hmm, I can confirm it'll choke on characters such as "<" and ">" too, not just "&" (hi, latest deadmau5 album name). So check that you escape special characters properly...
Comment 5 foss.freedom 2014-12-25 10:53:17 UTC
probably not the best place to discuss issues with third-party plugins ... ;)

(Various stuff fixed - others I need more info on what you are seeing!)

My tuppence as well ... headerbar gnome apps dont really work on non gnome-shell desktops such as LXDE/QT, XFCE and Unity - hence I'm hoping gnome maintainers take this into account when making changes.  

I've no idea if Jonathan/others wants a plugin - I've just done this for my education(!)
Comment 6 Jonathan Matthew 2014-12-27 03:54:59 UTC
> I've no idea if Jonathan/others wants a plugin - I've just done this for my
> education(!)

Not for this sort of thing, no.
Comment 7 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2017-09-21 22:49:15 UTC
Hi Jonathan, do you have any plans for actually implementing this in Rhythmbox as a native feature then?

As it stands, downstream Ubuntu will ship with the plugin above activated by default, as I found out in the news and at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/rhythmbox-plugin-alternative-toolbar/+bug/1703662. Just pointing out that, as it stands, the user experience of one of the biggest downstreams out there will be completely different from what has been developed and tested upstream.
Comment 8 Jonathan Matthew 2017-09-22 11:36:46 UTC
It's hardly the first time they've done that.
Comment 9 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2017-09-24 13:31:05 UTC
Sure. My question is rather if you, as the maintainer of the upstream app, are interested in migrating the UI and UX of the app to a headerbar/CSD natively, without the need for an external plugin (which you have indicated that you wouldn't want to accept as the technical solution anyway).
Comment 10 matheus4551 2017-09-25 19:47:03 UTC
I personally don't want a header bar. It will make the application less integrated and more alien-y to other DEs and WMs. Leave it as a external plugin.
Comment 11 Jonathan Matthew 2017-10-02 05:05:16 UTC
I think there are some pretty substantial changes required to make headerbar/CSD make sense.  Just shoving the playback controls in doesn't make a lot of sense to me, and currently putting anything else in there means it'll be separated from everything else by the playback controls, which seems awkward.  Moving the per-source menu bar (currently in the source header) and some of the app menu stuff seems like the best option.

Moving the playback controls to the bottom of the window doesn't sound like a great idea to me, but I'm not sure how much of that is just because they've always been there.  Doing that would require either removing the status bar or making it more explicitly part of the track listing (more like nautilus?).

Making the layout make sense with alternative WMs is also a concern, but I don't think it'd be hard to achieve.  The main reason I'm not interested in having this feature as a plugin is that I don't think plugins should make extensive changes to the UI.  It'd take far too much effort to actually stop them, so all I can really do is continue vaguely disapproving of it whenever it comes up.
Comment 12 matheus4551 2017-10-02 06:07:24 UTC
Anyway, i believe the current UI is better and more familiar. Well, i'm not very fond of these huge toolbar buttons from 3.x and liked the ones from 2.x and older more.
Comment 13 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2018-05-24 18:22:37 UTC
-- 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/rhythmbox/issues/1370.