Xfce Forum

RobtWB

Member

Registered: 2011-09-29

Posts: 6

XFWM4 Enhancement Suggestion

Browsing through the forum and wiki I see a lot of suggestions and requests for enhancements to XFCE, but there's one I haven't seen so I thought I'd mention it to see if it would generate any interest. A feature I'd like to see in the window manager is the ability to "remember" a window's size and screen position, like Enlightenment does (at least DR16, haven't tried 17). The work I do requires a lot of comparisons of information, meaning several programs with several windows open. Every day when I start again I have to manually resize and move the windows to the same places I had them before. It's of course not hard to do, but it would be nice if the window manager remembered these things and placed/sized the windows automatically on program launch. I know a similar thing can be done by simply saving the session, but I don't always use the same programs or documents day-to-day, so having the window manager remember my settings for a particular window would be much better. Is this something others would be interested in?

stqn

Member

Registered: 2010-10-11

Posts: 174

Re: XFWM4 Enhancement Suggestion

It might be more useful than the current auto-placement of xfwm yes. However if the program you're using doesn't remember its windows sizes (and positions), then it's not xfwm's fault!

daggoth

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2009-03-05

Posts: 42

Re: XFWM4 Enhancement Suggestion

Like you, I used to use save session to preserve my layout of workspaces and windows, but it wasn't ideal.

But unless a better solution presents itself... have you tried using tools like wmctrl and devilspie to help manage the placement of your windows?

RobtWB

Member

Registered: 2011-09-29

Posts: 6

Re: XFWM4 Enhancement Suggestion

As far as I know, it actually is the window manager's job to place the windows. A program generally supplies 'hints' to the window manager about it's needed size, but the placement is left up to the window manager. Some window managers (kwin and Enlightenment are two I'm familiar with, I'm sure there's others) have an option in their tool menu to remember where a window is placed by the user, and if the user re-sized it, what the new size is.

I'm sorry if anyone thought my intention was to denigrate xfwm, it's not. I actually like xfwm, it's fast, handles compositing very well, has many wonderful themes, etc. The intent of my original post was to see if others would be interested in seeing a feature like the ability to remember where a user places and how they re-size a window. If there are more people than myself interested, or think it would be useful, it would be worth suggesting to the developers, and see what they think. If not, then I won't bother them with the idea, as I'm sure they have enough to do already.

As to using script programs like wmctrl and devilspie, while they are options, they have drawbacks. Besides the obvious one of writing the scripts correctly, if you at some point decide to re-size and/or relocate a window, it's not a simple matter of just doing so on screen, because the next time you open it, it's going to go right back to where you'd scripted it to be. You have to edit the script. Some people enjoy that, and that's fine, but I'd prefer the window manager remember it.