HOWTO: Change Metacity/Twinview window placement behavior [Dapper, Edgy]

[TLE]

Sh*t guys I'm sorry. I completely forgot. I'll get something done soon.
Right now I'm looking into using the PPA for this as it will make things easier to maintain.
Regards TLE

[elysion]

Does anyone know of a same kind of thread for kwin? I'm not sure how kwin does this, guess the default is to open the window where the cursor is. Would really like to be able to change it so that I could somehow define where to open the windows. Also that "remember last state" kinda function would be sweet.

Nice thread btw. Big up for TLE! Sorry for this a bit off-topic post.

[mojoman]

Does anyone know of a same kind of thread for kwin? I'm not sure how kwin does this, guess the default is to open the window where the cursor is. Would really like to be able to change it so that I could somehow define where to open the windows. Also that "remember last state" kinda function would be sweet.

Nice thread btw. Big up for TLE! Sorry for this a bit off-topic post.

You could have a look at devilspie. It's in the repositories. It helps you define window behaviour (e.g. where to open it, how big etc) for specific applications though I don't think it alters the standard behaviour (e.g. cascade windows vs open window where cursor is).

/mojoman

[alexlzl]

The annoying behavior got back in Ubuntu 8.04. Just found another fix somewhere if you are using Compiz and later versions of Ubuntu. It is just a Compiz Setting change.

http://autopragmatic.com/2007/11/11/...dow-placement/

[Clappy]

I still really want to use metacity because compiz has major stuttering problems when scrolling and it's a resource hog to begin with.

Unfortunately, this patch doesn't work with metacity 2.22 . I figured out where n_xineramas is used. Can someone please help me (and others like me) decipher this code?

metacity-2.22.0/src/core/screen.c

meta_screen_get_natural_xinerama_list (MetaScreen *screen,
                                       int**       xineramas_list,
                                       int*        n_xineramas)
{
  const MetaXineramaScreenInfo* current;
  const MetaXineramaScreenInfo* tmp;
  GQueue* xinerama_queue;
  int* visited;
  int cur = 0;
  int i;

  *n_xineramas = screen->n_xinerama_infos;
  *xineramas_list = g_new (int, screen->n_xinerama_infos);

  /* we calculate a natural ordering by which to choose xineramas for
   * window placement.  We start at the current xinerama, and perform
   * a breadth-first search of the xineramas starting from that
   * xinerama.  We choose preferentially left, then right, then down,
   * then up.  The visitation order produced by this traversal is the
   * natural xinerama ordering.
   */

  visited = g_new (int, screen->n_xinerama_infos);
  for (i = 0; i < screen->n_xinerama_infos; i++)
    {
      visited[i] = FALSE;
    }

  current = meta_screen_get_current_xinerama (screen);
  xinerama_queue = g_queue_new ();
  g_queue_push_tail (xinerama_queue, (gpointer) current);
  visited[current->number] = TRUE;

  while (!g_queue_is_empty (xinerama_queue))
    {
      current = (const MetaXineramaScreenInfo*) 
        g_queue_pop_head (xinerama_queue);

      (*xineramas_list)[cur++] = current->number;

      /* enqueue each of the directions */
      tmp = meta_screen_get_xinerama_neighbor (screen,
                                               current->number,
                                               META_SCREEN_LEFT);
      if (tmp && !visited[tmp->number])
        {
          g_queue_push_tail (xinerama_queue,
                             (MetaXineramaScreenInfo*) tmp);
          visited[tmp->number] = TRUE;
        }
      tmp = meta_screen_get_xinerama_neighbor (screen,
                                               current->number,
                                               META_SCREEN_RIGHT);
      if (tmp && !visited[tmp->number])
        {
          g_queue_push_tail (xinerama_queue,
                             (MetaXineramaScreenInfo*) tmp);
          visited[tmp->number] = TRUE;
        }
      tmp = meta_screen_get_xinerama_neighbor (screen,
                                               current->number,
                                               META_SCREEN_UP);
      if (tmp && !visited[tmp->number])
        {
          g_queue_push_tail (xinerama_queue,
                             (MetaXineramaScreenInfo*) tmp);
          visited[tmp->number] = TRUE;
        }
      tmp = meta_screen_get_xinerama_neighbor (screen,
                                               current->number,
                                               META_SCREEN_DOWN);
      if (tmp && !visited[tmp->number])
        {
          g_queue_push_tail (xinerama_queue,
                             (MetaXineramaScreenInfo*) tmp);
          visited[tmp->number] = TRUE;
        }
    }

  /* in case we somehow missed some set of xineramas, go through the
   * visited list and add in any xineramas that were missed
   */
  for (i = 0; i < screen->n_xinerama_infos; i++)
    {
      if (visited[i] == FALSE)
        {
          (*xineramas_list)[cur++] = i;
        }
    }

  g_free (visited);
  g_queue_free (xinerama_queue);
}

[HerbCSO]

The annoying behavior got back in Ubuntu 8.04. Just found another fix somewhere if you are using Compiz and later versions of Ubuntu. It is just a Compiz Setting change.

http://autopragmatic.com/2007/11/11/...dow-placement/

Worked great for me in Hardy 8.04.1 - thanks!