maximised windows

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On Wed, 31 Mar 2004 purslow at sympatico.ca wrote:

> 040331 Moritz Heiber wrote:
> > 040330 "Brian J. Tarricone" <bjt23 at cornell.edu> wrote:
> >> is there any reason why xfwm4 allows you to move a maximised window?
> >> if you maximise a window, you want it to be fullscreen and decorated
> >> and there's no reason why you should want to move it.
> 
> that's a NON SEQ : at some point, you have a reason to maximise a window,
> then a few mins later you have another need & choose to move it,
> typically because it's blocking the view of some other window.

i disagree on principle, i suppose, but not always in practice.  i 
suppose my beef - which i did not articulate properly - is that after 
you maximise a window, if you move it, you can't un-maximise it.

> >> an example: as a general rule, i don't maximise my web browser windows.
> >> they're usually around 1000x600 (on my 1600x1200) screen.
> >> if there's something on a page that's large, i'll maximise it.
> >> after i'm done with the page, i'll want to restore it to normal size.
> >> unfortunately, occasionally i miss and move the window instead.
> 
> so, be more careful!  wm behaviour shdn't protect users fr clumsiness
> or at least only if it's a common mistake & protection harmless otherwise.

yes, it should.  correcting for user error (and/or helping the user 
avoid unintended behavior) is a concept known as robustness.  any good 
computer system has it (among other things).

> >> after that, all clicking 'maximise' does is re-maximise the window.
> 
> what it does for me is move the max'd window back to where it started,
> wh seems appropriate for 'maximise'.

no.  maximise is a function that changes the _size_ of the window.  
moving the window position to (0,0) (or whatever, based on your 
workspace margins) is an inicidental side-effect based on the 
realisation that it's useless to make a window's size the same as the 
screen size and then have parts of it off-screen.

at any rate, after you click the 'maximise' button, it turns itself into 
a 'restore' button.  user-interface-wise, it's essentially a toggle 
button, and it's incorrect to change the state of a toggle button based 
on something as unrelated as window movement.  with few exceptions (and 
this is not one of them), the only time a toggle button should change 
state is when it's clicked.

i'll rephrase this for clarity:  after you click 'maximise', the window 
is in the maximised state, and the 'maximise' button is now a 'restore' 
button.  moving the window should not change this state.  the only thing 
that should remove the window from the maximised state should be a click 
of the 'restore' button.

> >> my original window size is lost, and that annoys me.
> 
> that's what you shd expect if you ask Xfwm to maximise an unmax'd window!

uhh.  that makes no sense.  if i maximise a window and then move it, 
it's still maximised.  it's just not centered on my screen.  think about 
the word.  maximised.  it's a word that describes _size_, not position.  
moving the window does not change its size, and thus it should not 
remove the window from the maximised state.

> > I klemmer the removal of this option since I use it quite a lot.
> > I could easily just roll up windows to get to the windows behind
> > not being able to move maximized windows is probably
> > the most annoying 'feature' windows ever punished it's users with.
>                               ^^^^^^^ ?? M$ Windows ??
> > Puuleeeze keep it!
> 
> surely, Xfwm is behaving w the elegant rationality one assoc's w XFCE.
> let's leave it that way.

<sarcasm>oh, there's a great reason to keep something - the status 
quo.</sarcasm>  i think when such "elegant rationality" is at odds with 
so many other WMs, as well as standard UI principles, this so-called 
"rationality" should be reevaluated.

as i mentioned in an earlier post this morning (which oddly doesn't seem 
to have hit the list yet, from my perspective), i've altered my opinion 
slightly - it's fine to allow window movement while a window is 
maximised, as i can see why a significant portion of users might want 
this feature.  but toggling the maximise/restore button after moving it 
should still restore the window to its original state.

	-brian