Bug 676

Created attachment 240 [details]
Change default window placement to Centered

Smart placement is an interesting option but confusing to non geeks. A saner default option is Centered. Clever geeks can change the placement to Smart if desired.

Patch attached.

I would like a bit more information if you don't mind... :)

What does "Smart" placement do?  Which programs does it affect?  Does "Centered" do what the name suggests; i.e. center new windows?

The Smart algorithm tries to somewhat tile windows, placing them first in the upper left of the desktop and then adding new windows to the right of any previous window. When the "row" is filled the process begins anew below the previous "row" of windows.

Or something like that. I never have been able to wrap my mind or adjust to the placement ever since I started using KDE3 years ago. Possibly the placment has some sense after several windows are opened, but when only one is opened, the window flies to that upper left corner of the desktop.

The challenge with this being a default setting is the way the human eyes and mind coordinate events. The human eyes watch the approximate center of whatever the eyes are focused. The mind expects a new window to open in that approximate vision area. When a window snaps to the far upper left, the eyes and mind find that disruptive because that is part of the periphery portion of the vision.

So-called Smart placement makes sense only when the user fully expects that behavior. Every day users never expect that behavior because the windows appear outside the vision area.

Opening centered is more natural way for the eyes looking at the desktop.

With that said, the Smart option remains viable for those people who want that kind of behavior and then purposely set the window placment as such. Those users expect that window placement because they had to manually select that option. The fact that so-called tiled window managers are popular amongst a minority of propellerheads indicates the option should remain.

Just not as the default. :)

The Centered algorithm does just that. All new windows are placed at the center of the desktop. Yes, windows will overlap, but most people never notice the overlapping because most people are not geeks and do not open a gazillion windows at one time. Most people deal with one or two windows at a time. A significant number of people open apps full maximized anyway. Centering is helpful when people use applets that are not full-windowed.

Looking at the Smart code one can see that a lot of math and sweat equity went into that placement option. I have no doubt with so much work required that the devs would want that placement option to be the show case. Roosters crow and so do humans. :)

The Centered option is natural to the vision landscape. The Smart option is not. Smart is for geeks who want to go out of their way to be different, just like so-called tiled window managers.

I'm off my soap box now. :)

(In reply to comment #3)
> The Smart algorithm tries to somewhat tile windows, placing them first in the
> upper left of the desktop and then adding new windows to the right of any
> previous window. When the "row" is filled the process begins anew below the
> previous "row" of windows.

Interesting.  I'm going to be contrary here and say that smart placement always made sense to me subconsciously even though I had no real idea what was different from Window$.  Here is my current rationale:

I usually maximize my windows if they are not opened as such.  Opening the window centered forces me to scan in an additional direction (along the Y axis) to find the maximize button and/or titlebar.  If the window opens with the titlebar at the top of the screen, I can simply slam the cursor to the top of the screen and double click to maximize--this is obviously a very fast operation.

This is obviously from a long term geek's perspective, as someone who uses virtual desktops and multiple monitors heavily.  I would appreciate more input from other TDE users; maybe it would be a good idea to bring this up on the mailing list?

How about we devise a way for administrators to more easily change the global default setting? Perhaps a *.desktop or config.kcfg file that can be modified?

The code would read the user's preferences. When that setting is not found, which is true for an initial installation, the code would read a global config file. If neither the user's settings or the global setting is set, then the code defaults to the hard-coded Smart.

This approach also would allow packagers to set a preferred default during the build process without patching code. (I dislike the idea of distro-specific patches.)

Since there is already an option to change the behaviour and the default settings seems logical, I am closing this bug as wontfix.