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View Full Version : Unity spread behaves different since 14.04 (random window location)



b_old2
May 30th, 2014, 07:33 PM
Before 14.04 unity spread was easy to use because the windows were at the same position every time it was activated.
In 14.04 they change position (randomly?) every time the spread is activated. Especially when the open instances look very similar (e.g. multiple nautilus windows) it takes me a long time to select the window I want to go to.
Is this intended? Can it be changed?
The view you get when pressing alt-~ seems to work as before.

mc4man
May 31st, 2014, 03:15 AM
I don't see it as random here -
Assuming same set of windows open the layout only changes if focus changes from previous spread (ie. which window has focus or no window has focus, ect.

b_old2
May 31st, 2014, 11:45 AM
Exactly. This is what changed. In previous versions the same window would always be displayed on the same position, so it was really easy and quite fast to switch between them.
It also seems suspicious to me, that the behavior is not consistent with the alt-~ spread.
Can this be changed?

mc4man
May 31st, 2014, 03:21 PM
Don't think that alt~ & scale are that related, I don't use alt~ though a quick look suggests it orders based on the order windows are opened.
As far as changing current scale behavior, not sure, though there isn't a setting regarding this.

You could look at the scale-addons plugin (not default installed, part of compiz-plugins) which lets you have a window title overlay in spread or the Scale Window Title Filter plugin (not default installed...). It works by - when in the spread type a letter(s), only windows that start with that letter(s) will be displayed in the spread, ect.

b_old2
June 1st, 2014, 05:58 PM
Thanks for the info.
I'm surprised that this is not a an issue for more people. In my opinion this really decreases the usability of unity.