HOW-TO: Build Unity with 'Dodge Windows' and minimize/unminimize behavior

[isaacj87]

This is really great! It brought back my interest in life

But what will happen when Unity team will release an update or a new version?
And what will happen if only patch is installed from GIT?

If you're building and installing this from my Github, I believe the local install will overtake any version of Unity.

If you're using the PPA, I'll attempt to patch the latest stable release of Unity and put packages up on the PPA.

EDIT: I have some updates coming soon. Unfortunately, it's finals week, so I'm preparing for those. There were some bugs mentioned in this thread that I have fixed. For those using the "compile from source" method, you should already have those fixes.

[mackuz]

So the better way is installing from Github, and Unity will be updating and the patch will work.
Is it right?

[isaacj87]

So the better way is installing from Github, and Unity will be updating and the patch will work.
Is it right?

You'll get the same results either way. Building and installing from Github would technically be faster, but the changes will make it to my PPA too.

I've gone ahead and sent up the changes to be built. The new packages should be available soon. Here's the relevant changelog:

unity (5.12.0-0ubuntu2+ikarosdev1) precise; urgency=low

  * Bug-fix release.
    - Cleanup after merging original 'dodge windows' code into 5.12.0
    - Fix bug which "forgets" hiding behvavior settings when user logs-out or reboots
    - Fix bug which doesn't minimize all windows after spread function

EDIT: My build was rejected. I noticed I forgot to clean up files in my orig.tar.gz, so I attempted to upload a new one. Unfortunately, LP will reject these. I'm having to delete the already existing package and start fresh. I'm awaiting my package deleting and I'll upload the new changes. This shouldn't have any effect on existing PPA users. I'm still learning how to use my PPA. Thank you for your patience.

EDIT2: I think I sorted the issues out. 32 and 64-bit packages are available for update.

[WorLord]

The spread windows behaviour and minimize on click is not working when there is only one workspace set in compiz preferences. When two or more worspaces are set it works perfectly. I don't know if that is a bug or if there is a reason why it happens.

It's a bug NOW (996604), I can tell you that. Please mark it as affecting you as well.

[jsevi83]

I just marked the bug as affecting me too. Same as you, I don't use multiple workspaces and dislike having the worspace switcher icon in the launcher.

[Jack']

There was an unity update a few days ago.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...1.1/+changelog

unity (5.12-0ubuntu1.1) precise-proposed; urgency=low
* Cherry pick upstream fixes.
- Fix UnityViewWindow background when blur is disabled (LP: #989291)
- App icon on the Unity Launcher lost track of running instance (LP: #772063)
- No launcher icon or Alt+Tab entry for Gimp windows (LP: #995916)
- Locked smuxi launcher icon does not indicate smuxi running status (LP: #999820)
- Fix dash search field hidden by tooltips (LP: #978030)
- Launcher is silent to screen reader users (LP: #949448)
- Fix 3D apps running much slower under Unity (LP: #987304)
- Reduced number of calls to ResultViewGrid::QueueDraw
- Reduced number of calls to BGHash::RefreshColor -- Alan Pope <popey@ubuntu.com> Wed, 23 May 2012 18:10:49 +0100

Just to let you know

[isaacj87]

There was an unity update a few days ago.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...1.1/+changelog

Just to let you know

Hmmm, those are some good fixes (especially the GIMP no alt-tab icon bug). Unfortunately, I'm hosting my stuff on Github and I can't directly cherry pick those fixes (unless someone else can tell me how). The best solution would be to host the Unity source on LP like I should of done.

Currently, I'm only building packages from stable releases. I wasn't planning on building anything from trunk. If time permits, maybe I will. As it stands now, I don't have a lot of free time.

[x-shaney-x]

I decided to give up on dodge and just get on with using autohide or always show because I don't want to mess around with PPA's, it's more things to have to do after an installation.
Alas, I just miss it so much and have problems with the other two solutions so have gone ahead and used this PPA and it's brilliant

It's quite frustrating that Chrome OS has now adopted a dodge style taskbar (or more like KDE's "windows can cover") behaviour.

Shame it's too confusing for ubuntu users.

[isaacj87]

There was an unity update a few days ago.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source...1.1/+changelog

Just to let you know

I've gone ahead and created a new branch for unity-revamped on LP. You can see this here: https://code.launchpad.net/~ikarosde...unity-revamped

I haven't added ojno's minimize/unminimize feature, but I have re-added the dodge windows feature. After I'm finished adding everything back to the updated 5.0 branch, I'll build some new packages with the fixes you described.

EDIT: If you guys are comfortable with building Unity yourself, you can go ahead and pull a copy and make sure everything works. I'm currently testing the changes right now and everything seems okay.

EDIT2: Everything has been re-added to my branch on LP. Updated packages will be coming soon after I make sure everything is working nicely.

EDIT3: Packages are building...

unity (5.12.0-0ubuntu2+ikarosdev2) precise; urgency=low

  * Cherry pick upstream fixes.
    - Fix UnityViewWindow background when blur is disabled (LP: #989291)
    - App icon on the Unity Launcher lost track of running instance (LP: #772063)
    - No launcher icon or Alt+Tab entry for Gimp windows (LP: #995916)
    - Locked smuxi launcher icon does not indicate smuxi running status (LP: #999820)
    - Fix dash search field hidden by tooltips (LP: #978030)
    - Launcher is silent to screen reader users (LP: #949448)
    - Fix 3D apps running much slower under Unity (LP: #987304)
    - Reduced number of calls to ResultViewGrid::QueueDraw
    - Reduced number of calls to BGHash::RefreshColor
    - Properly fix spread when minimizing all windows
 -- Isaac Joseph <ikarosdev@gmail.com>   Sun, 17 Jun 2012 19:56:11 -0500

[isaacj87]

Can anyone confirm that they received updated packages? I'm pretty sure it worked for my other laptop, but ppastats aren't registering any downloads for the new packages...