Client-side decorations and button layout

[Tim]

On 08/10/14 22:13, Dmitry Shachnev wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Currently on Unity the apps using client-side decorations (aka
> headerbars) have Close button on the right side, which is inconsistent
> with all other apps. A good example of such app is gnome-weather.
Aren't there bigger issues right now like compiz not rendering the window
decorations correctly or so?
>
> Modern versions of gnome-settings-daemon read a value from GSettings
> (org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences button-layout) and export that to
> Gtk via an XSettings property (Gtk/DecorationLayout).
> If we do the same, such apps will have all 3 buttons (close, minimize,
> maximize) on the left side. In my opinion, that looks a bit messy (see
> the screenshot attached).
This seems to work well enough with right side buttons, however we (Ubuntu GNOME) will probably
revert to the upstream button layout (just close) next cycle anyway
>
> Recent versions of Gtk+ also allow to add "appmenu" button to the
> client-side decoration. It can be useful for apps which have both the
> appmenu and the traditional menu (IIRC in such case indicator-appmenu
> will only show the traditional one). Also, it can be useful for users
> who have global menu disabled or users of non-Unity environments like
> GNOME Flashback.
"appmenu"'s were always odd, especially more so on multiple monitors,
but it gets worse when some Ubuntu packages patch out the appmenu's
> So, we have some options:
>
> 1) Just follow GNOME and read from GSettings — all three buttons will be seen.
Yes
> 2) Read from GSettings but filter out maximize and minimize — only
> close will be seen by default. It will be possible to move/show/hide
> close and appmenu buttons in the decorations using the usual GSettings
> way, and it will be possible to use an override
> (org.gnome.settings-daemon.plugins.xsettings overrides) to show the
> rest of buttons.
No don't do that, just ship a default config that only has a close button, there is
no reason to have to filter buttons out and its just going to complicate things
> 3) Just hardcode that we have the close button on the left side, and only it.
> 3A) Hardcode that we have the close button on the left side, and an
> appmenu button somewhere.
Users hate hardcoded ui (well the more vocal ones anyway)
>
> I have prepared a branch that implements 1),
> lp:~mitya57/unity-settings-daemon/headerhar-xsettings. The built
> package is also available in ppa;mitya57/gnome-test.
>
> Opinions?
>
> P.S. This is of course not in Utopic scope, but it will be nice to
> have better decorations in Utopic+1.
>
> --
> Dmitry Shachnev
>
>