Bug#824778: cinnamon: consider to recommen gtk3-nocsd

[Christian Seiler]

Hi there,

Am 2016-05-31 01:27, schrieb Christoph Anton Mitterer:

On Fri, 2016-05-27 at 20:44 +, Margarita Manterola wrote:

 I'm not sure what it is supposed to do, but I 
was sort of expecting a File/Edit/View menu.  Instead, what I got 
was a window title on top of the CSD window title and it really 
didn't look good to me.

Is this how it's supposed to look?


So AFAIU, there is no real automatic way of getting back proper old
looks (i.e. wit menus, etc. as you wished)... and unless the respective
projects upstream supports both modes (CSD / non-CSD) as e.g. gnome-
terminal seems to do (at least so far),... the results we get from
gtk3-nocsd is the best one can have.


So the problem is that the code that generated the menus was removed
from e.g. gedit or nautilus - so it's not possible to simply
reconstruct the old menu bar, at least not in a generic fashion. I
could of course copy a ton of old code form lots of applications into
gtk3-nocsd and run it when gtk3-nocsd is used together with said
applications, but that has way too many potential pitfals for my test.
The test matrix for the changes gtk3-nocsd currently does is already
quite large.

gtk3-nocsd is simply a way of forcing the WM/DE's decorations to be
applied to all gtk3 applications. The reason why at least I want to
have this is to make sure I have a consistent UI to manipulate windows.

It strongly depends on the application as to how well that works
aesthetically. For example, nautilus is actually quite OK with
gtk3-nocsd (despite the fact that the menu bar is not present),
whereas eog doesn't look that good. gedit is kind of in the middle.
(Although there the lack of menu bar has a worse effect as compared to
nautilus.)

Personally, I think it's an improvement in all cases (otherwise I
wouldn't maintain the package), as compared to the case of having to
use CSDs at all. (In the case where you're not using GNOME 3 itself,
for which gtk3-nocsd disables itself.) But I freely admit that it
can't solve all the issues.


> I've CCed, Christian, the gtk3-nocsd maintainer (and as it seems
> most active upstream dev)...perhaps he has some ideas to share
> about this one.

You don't seem to have done this.


mhh.. strange... I though I'd have added him in reportbug.
CCing him again now, just in case he's interested.


I got the original message, but since I'm not a cinnamon user, I can't
speak as to whether it would be a good idea to Recommend  gtk3-nocsd
with cinnamon or not.

Anyway, I would ask you to wait for the next upload that will fix a lot
of bugs that Christoph reported, and then make your decision based on
that.

Regards,
Christian

Bug#824778: cinnamon: consider to recommen gtk3-nocsd

[Christoph Anton Mitterer]

Hey Margarita.

On Fri, 2016-05-27 at 20:44 +, Margarita Manterola wrote:
> I tested gtk3-nocsed as it currently is in stretch and the result 
> wasn't very nice.
Well there are some bugs in it, which are to be fixed in the next
uploads which is going to happen pretty soon.

But I think your judgement is a bit harsh, isn't it?



>  I'm not sure what it is supposed to do, but I 
> was sort of expecting a File/Edit/View menu.  Instead, what I got 
> was a window title on top of the CSD window title and it really 
> didn't look good to me.
> 
> Is this how it's supposed to look?

Well, the CSDs are IMHO a highly questionable "feature" and not only
completely useless for desktops (they might have some value on small-
screen devices like smart phones) and the way upstream implemented it
or better said, the way upstream projects that use CSDs implemented it
is the typical GNOME hostile way: not obeying other peoples needs, not
being compatible to long proven standards and concepts.

So AFAIU, there is no real automatic way of getting back proper old
looks (i.e. wit menus, etc. as you wished)... and unless the respective
projects upstream supports both modes (CSD / non-CSD) as e.g. gnome-
terminal seems to do (at least so far),... the results we get from
gtk3-nocsd is the best one can have.

It's not necessarily perfect, but that's rather the fault of CSDs, less
of gtk3-nocsd and at least it gives people back proper window
decorations.
So IMHO, it's still pretty valuable for non GNOME3 users.


> > I've CCed, Christian, the gtk3-nocsd maintainer (and as it seems
> > most active upstream dev)...perhaps he has some ideas to share
> > about this one.
> 
> You don't seem to have done this.

mhh.. strange... I though I'd have added him in reportbug.
CCing him again now, just in case he's interested.


Cheers,
Chris.

smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature

Bug#824778: cinnamon: consider to recommen gtk3-nocsd

[Margarita Manterola]

Hi,

El Jueves 19 Mayo 2016 17:51 CEST, Christoph Anton Mitterer 
 Ha escrito:
> I'd suggest to consider whether a cinnamon package (perhaps
> cinnamon, -core, or maybe even -desktop-environment) should
> possibly recommend the package gtk3-nocsd.
>
> Since cinnamon users typically want to avoid the ... uhm...
> "GNOME3 special 'features'", it seems natural that they also
> don't want CSD (i.e. client side decorations).

I tested gtk3-nocsed as it currently is in stretch and the result
wasn't very nice. I'm not sure what it is supposed to do, but I
was sort of expecting a File/Edit/View menu.  Instead, what I got
was a window title on top of the CSD window title and it really
didn't look good to me.

Is this how it's supposed to look?

> I've CCed, Christian, the gtk3-nocsd maintainer (and as it seems
> most active upstream dev)...perhaps he has some ideas to share
> about this one.

You don't seem to have done this.

--
Regards,
Marga

Bug#824778: cinnamon: consider to recommen gtk3-nocsd

[Christoph Anton Mitterer]

Package: cinnamon
Version: 3.0.2-2
Severity: wishlist


Hi.

For an analogous rationale I gave for #824551, which I've
quoted from https://github.com/linuxmint/Cinnamon/issues/5306

I'd suggest to consider whether a cinnamon package (perhaps
cinnamon, -core, or maybe even -desktop-environment) should
possibly recommend the package gtk3-nocsd.

Since cinnamon users typically want to avoid the ... uhm...
"GNOME3 special 'features'", it seems natural that they also
don't want CSD (i.e. client side decorations).

With one of the next uploads gtk3-nocsd probably fixes most
of the issues I've found with it (most of them minor rather
minor things like graphical stuff).


Some people may not want to have libgtk3-nocsd generally,
preloaded... I've opened #824775, where we could discuss
possible ways to have it only loaded for well known CSD-
offenders, like eog, gedit and so on.


I've CCed, Christian, the gtk3-nocsd maintainer (and as it seems
most active upstream dev)...perhaps he has some ideas to share
about this one.


Cheers,
Chris.