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Topic: «Desktop divider questions , Using AWM 7.0 beta 1 » on forum: Beta Testing   Views: 86289
 
Pim Joosten
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 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/15/2012 06:01:11
 
 
 Hi Vasiliy and Alex,

As there are no help texts available yet for the desktop divider I have to experiment a bit. To me, the way it is supposed to work is not entirely clear yet. Is it meant to function as a kind of monitor where the maximize button works inside a desktop tile or is it meant as a predefined area where I can quickly move a window to? Right now when I click the maximize button, the window is maximized to a desktop tile, but the maximize button does not change to a restore button. That only happens when I maximize the window to the monitor when dragging the window to the top of the monitor.

Also, when I have just one area on a monitor, the maximize window button does not work correctly there either. It just does not maximize to the monitor. It seems to enlarge the window to 100%m x 100%m. But then if I do that on monitor 1, there also is a shade of that enlarged window on the other monitor.

In my personal opinion it should still be possible to easily maximize a window to the monitor when the desktop divider is switched on.

I have also encountered situations of windows becoming very, very small or completely disappearing on me when toggling the maximize button (I cannot speak of maximize and restore here, as the button never changed, so I could not tell which was the maximized state and which the restored state). I cannot give you directions now on how to reproduce that, because I haven't found out myself yet. I need more info as to how the maximize window function is intended with the desktop divider switched on, so that I can do some more research.

Furthermore, the sign of Put into divider title button is not or very barely visible as a title button. It looks like an empty title button. I think this button should (must!) be changed.

Then I think that when editing the desktop divider the I and the regular I should be changed to a more clear symbol like >I< for making a horizontal division and the same but then rotated 90 degrees for a vertical division (I cannot type my suggestion here, because of the limitations of regular typed text, but I think you know what I mean). Also, I think tooltips would be very handy with the buttons in the edit desktop divider window.

How is the numbering of desktop tiles supposed to be in a multi-monitor setup? On my 2 monitor system I have seen that it goes fr om 1 and up on every monitor, but also that my first monitor (containing just 1 desktop tile) had number 1, and the second monitor (containing 3 desktop tiles) had numbers 2 to 4. I have not yet been able to research this further. It would be handy to know first how it is supposed to be.

I have also come across the "Put into..." button not being displayed, even though it was switched on. And then I also came across a situation wh ere if I chose a window to be moved to a desktop tile on another monitor by clicking the appropriate area in the "Put into..." window, it did not work. I do not know what exactly I did to solve the situation, because I was trying to figure out what was going wrong, but I managed to solve both issues.
For the "Put into..." tile button I think I unselected it from the default window settings > title buttons, saved the configuration, then selected the "Put into..." title button again, saved the configuration and then it worked. I had selected the "Put into..." title button before, so it should have worked the first time. Maybe a setting needed to be set again in order to work. The strange situation was, however, that the button did appear right from the start on program windows for which I have a specific setting.

I personally think the desktop divider is not ready to be rolled out as a regular release yet  :!: There are still a couple of things to be solved.

I will post more when I discover more, I have just started to experiment. However, there is also regular work to be done, so i will not always be able to respond and/or test right away. For now I am eager to know how the maximize window is supposed to function, as that will probably help me in understanding and discovering errors.

Best regards.
 
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Pim Joosten
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 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/15/2012 07:27:03
 
 
 I have an addition to my previous post. The button "Put into..." is also shown when Desktop dividers is switched off. IMO, it would be better not to show this button in that case, similar to the virtual desktop buttons and multi-monitor buttons. They do not appear when virtual desktops is switched off and/or when there is only one monitor.
 
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Bertram Vogel
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 64
Joined: 01/14/2012
Posted: 01/15/2012 12:31:01
 
 
Quote
In my personal opinion it should still be possible to easily maximize a window to the monitor when the desktop divider is switched on.
I agree to that. Pressing the Maximize-Button should always maximize the window to the monitor (at least as an option).
You could add the "Maximize to divider tile"-Function just to the "Put into Divider tile"-Button:
The first click on this button maximizes a window to the divider-tile it is currently in. The following clicks move it to the other divider tiles (as it works at the moment).


Quote
Furthermore, the sign of Put into divider title button is not or very barely visible as a title button. It looks like an empty title button. I think this button should (must!) be changed.
I think the sign of the title button is actually very good. The problem is the sign randomly disappears when switching between divider tiles (either by using the title button or using the hotkeys) and then the button looks like an empty button as Pim described.


Quote
I have also come across the "Put into..." button not being displayed, even though it was switched on. [...] For the "Put into..." tile button I think I unselected it from the default window settings > title buttons, saved the configuration, then selected the "Put into..." title button again, saved the configuration and then it worked. I had selected the "Put into..." title button before, so it should have worked the first time. Maybe a setting needed to be set again in order to work. The strange situation was, however, that the button did appear right from the start on program windows for which I have a specific setting.
I have the same problem and observed the following: I think the button is only displayed on applications, that are already started.
So for example the title button is correctly displayed (or not displayed) on windows of the windows explorer, because the explorer.exe is running all the time.
But the title button is only added to notepad-windows that are OPEN in the moment i save the settings. All following notepad-windows i open do not have the title button.

---------

1. There also is a problem with the GUI in the "Desktop Divider" tab: If you have not selected a layout and click the "Activate the layout"-Button you get an error message.

2. In "Window Settings" -> "Window Menu" the entry "Put into..." has no text (just the checkbox is displayed).

3. Snapping to the borders of the Desktop Divider tiles does NOT work, if the option "While pressed" is activated. It does work for the "Always" and "While NOT pressed" options.

4. The taskbar-area is not excluded in all tile layouts. For example it IS excluded for the following layout:

|---|---|
|...|...|
|---|---|
|...|...|
|---|---|


But it is NOT excluded in the following layouts:

|-------|
|.......|
|-------|
|.......|
|-------|
 and
|---|---|
|...|...|
|...|...|
|...|...|
|---|---|


Hope this helps!
 
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Pim Joosten
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 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/15/2012 13:28:06
 
 
Quote
I think the sign of the title button is actually very good. The problem is the sign randomly disappears when switching between divider tiles (either by using the title button or using the hotkeys) and then the button looks like an empty button as Pim described.
I can almost never see the sign, not even in the options menu > Title buttons.

Quote
I think the button is only displayed on applications, that are already started.
I have tested and confirmed this.

I also have a further observation/feature request after having looked into (and confirmed!) all remarks Bertram made. Right now I can snap a window to a tile by dropping a window on the upper horizontal border of a tile. I suggest to also be able to use snapping onto the vertical borders of a tile. It would make moving windows around faster and more efficient. This could be optional, so that one could also choose that snapping only works for the horizontal borders.
 
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Pim Joosten
Resident
 
 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/15/2012 13:42:21
 
 
Quote
I have an addition to my previous post. The button "Put into..." is also shown when Desktop dividers is switched off. IMO, it would be better not to show this button in that case, similar to the virtual desktop buttons and multi-monitor buttons. They do not appear when virtual desktops is switched off and/or when there is only one monitor.
I have some additional info. I discovered that the "Put into.." button does not disappear directly after the desktop divider is turned off. That only happens when I uncheck it under Window settings > Title Buttons. If I check this button when desktop dividers is switched off, it does not appear (which is correct). If I then activate the desktop divider it still does not appear. That seems to be consistent with the observations above, that only hitting the save button after selecting the "Put into..." title button activates it.
 
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Gerard Booth
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 119
Joined: 08/04/2008
Posted: 01/16/2012 13:22:49
 
 
Quote
Also, when I have just one area on a monitor, the maximize window button does not work correctly there either. It just does not maximize to the monitor. It seems to enlarge the window to 100%m x 100%m. But then if I do that on monitor 1, there also is a shade of that enlarged window on the other monitor.

I am not seeing this on my sytem, where I have only one area defined, windows maximise correctley to the full screen

Quote
In my personal opinion it should still be possible to easily maximize a window to the monitor when the desktop divider is switched on.

Yes I agree with Pim and Bertram on that point. It should always be possible to maximise a window to full desktop. I find the operation of the Desktop Divider button quite good, If I have several areas defined on an individual monitor and I repeatedly click the button, the selected window cycles through all of the defined areas. So the standard Windows Maximise button should be left to function as normal.

Quote
Furthermore, the sign of Put into divider title button is not or very barely visible as a title button. It looks like an empty title button. I think this button should (must!) be changed.

The button never shows any symbol on my system, it is always either blank or does not appear at all.

Quote
How is the numbering of desktop tiles supposed to be in a multi-monitor setup? On my 2 monitor system I have seen that it goes fr om 1 and up on every monitor, but also that my first monitor (containing just 1 desktop tile) had number 1, and the second monitor (containing 3 desktop tiles) had numbers 2 to 4. I have not yet been able to research this further. It would be handy to know first how it is supposed to be.

This feature appears to work fine on my four monitor system, every monitor numbers its tiles individually. i.e it goes from 1 upwards on each monitor with no carry over to the next monitors

Quote
There also is a problem with the GUI in the "Desktop Divider" tab: If you have not selected a layout and click the "Activate the layout"-Button you get an error message.

Yes I am seeing this as well.

Quote
. In "Window Settings" -> "Window Menu" the entry "Put into..." has no text (just the checkbox is displayed).

Well spotted.



Another issue. If I right click on the desktop on any monitor I bring up the context menu and select Desktop Divider, NONE of the listed command have any effect although all of these same commands work perfect when right clicking the AWM tray icon and using identical options in that pop up menu.

Best Regards
 
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Pim Joosten
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 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/17/2012 03:49:22
 
 
Quote
Also, when I have just one area on a monitor, the maximize window button does not work correctly there either. It just does not maximize to the monitor. It seems to enlarge the window to 100%m x 100%m. But then if I do that on monitor 1, there also is a shade of that enlarged window on the other monitor.

I am not seeing this on my sytem, where I have only one area defined, windows maximise correctley to the full screen
Gerard, what do you see at the position of the maximize button when you have the window maximized? Is it a restore button or still the maximize button? Because of your remark I have looked again, also on my 2nd computer, which I had not done before, and again, the window always maximizes to 100%m x 100%m and not a maximized window. Be aware that there is a difference between these two, although they can appear to be similar. A difference for example is the way Aero behaves. I am using Vista Ultimate 32-bit as well as Vista Ultimate 64-bit and I know that Windows 7 shows maximized windows with Aero, whereas Vista does not.

It seems that the Desktop divider interferes with window maximization, which makes its use rather cumbersome and, honestly, for me, if it stays this way, unusable. To give an example: I have a specific window setting for opening a remote desktop connection that automatically maximizes and moves the remote desktop to the 2nd monitor. With Desktop divider switched on, the size of the window is not maximized but 100%m x 100%m, which means that I get scrollbars on the remote desktop. This makes it very cumbersome to use. With Desktop dividers switched off it maximizes perfectly to my 2nd monitor without scrollbars. With desktop dividers switched on, on one occasion my remote desktop did not show up at all, although there was a taskbar button, so it was open.


Quote
I have also encountered situations of windows becoming very, very small or completely disappearing on me when toggling the maximize button (I cannot speak of maximize and restore here, as the button never changed, so I could not tell which was the maximized state and which the restored state). I cannot give you directions now on how to reproduce that, because I haven't found out myself yet. I need more info as to how the maximize window function is intended with the desktop divider switched on, so that I can do some more research.
It have encountered the case of windows becoming very small again. I again was not able to reproduce it, but I was able to test whether the very small size was associated with a normal or maximized state, by switching the desktop divider on and off. It appears it can be both! If, when seeing the very small window, I switch off desktop divider, sometimes when I right-click the taskbar button,  I get the restore option, in other cases I get the maximize option. This means that the state can be maximized or normal respectively. I think this issue will be solved when the way the desktop divider deals with the maximization of windows is changed to its normal behaviour.


Quote
So the standard Windows Maximise button should be left to function as normal.
One extra reason to keep the normal behavior is that it results in a consistent user interface. It is one of the most common title buttons in Windows and for such a button I would say: do not change its behavior by default. When I first installed AWM 6.8 beta 1 and looked at desktop dividers, I immediately switched it off, because it caused unexpected behavior of the maximize button. Only recently did I test desktop divider further. I think any user will be startled at first to see the behavior of the maximize button change by default. Well, enough said about that, I think I made my point  ;)


Quote
This feature appears to work fine on my four monitor system, every monitor numbers its tiles individually. i.e it goes from 1 upwards on each monitor with no carry over to the next monitors
Thanks for the info. I already suspected that. I will keep my eyes open when I see the carry over again and then look into it.


Quote
Another issue. If I right click on the desktop on any monitor I bring up the context menu and select Desktop Divider, NONE of the listed command have any effect although all of these same commands work perfect when right clicking the AWM tray icon and using identical options in that pop up menu.
Tested and confirmed. It does raise another question: normally in the configuration module after enabling desktop divider, I also have to save the configuration in order for it to have effect. How would that be if the right click on the desktop does work and I select Enable desktop divider?

Best regards.
 
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Gerard Booth
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 119
Joined: 08/04/2008
Posted: 01/17/2012 04:39:25
 
 
Quote
Gerard, what do you see at the position of the maximize button when you have the window maximized? Is it a restore button or still the maximize button? Because of your remark I have looked again, also on my 2nd computer, which I had not done before, and again, the window always maximizes to 100%m x 100%m and not a maximized window. Be aware that there is a difference between these two, although they can appear to be similar. A difference for example is the way Aero behaves. I am using Vista Ultimate 32-bit as well as Vista Ultimate 64-bit and I know that Windows 7 shows maximized windows with Aero, whereas Vista does not.
Good morning Pim,  Yes you are in fact correct, my apologies. I just assumed as the window seemed to maximise that it was working OK. When a window is initially opened full screen the maximise/restore button does display correctley, it is only after collapsing and maximising the window that this changes, I had not looked at the button again after the initial opening.  You are correct again, windows do maximise correctley with the Desktop divider function switched off.
 
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Pim Joosten
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 Posts: 549
Joined: 11/11/2010
Posted: 01/17/2012 07:12:32
 
 
 Good afternoon Gerard.

Quote
Yes you are in fact correct, my apologies
No apologies necessary. I always like to think it is cooperation that makes the world go round  ;)  Any remark that can help in solving issues, whether it is with a left turn or a right turn, is welcome!  :D
 
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Bertram Vogel
Advanced user
 
 Posts: 64
Joined: 01/14/2012
Posted: 01/18/2012 16:25:03
 
 
Quote
Another issue. If I right click on the desktop on any monitor I bring up the context menu and select Desktop Divider, NONE of the listed command have any effect although all of these same commands work perfect when right clicking the AWM tray icon and using identical options in that pop up menu.
I can also confirm this.

Quote
Right now I can snap a window to a tile by dropping a window on the upper horizontal border of a tile. I suggest to also be able to use snapping onto the vertical borders of a tile. It would make moving windows around faster and more efficient. This could be optional, so that one could also choose that snapping only works for the horizontal borders.
If this is implemented it has to be optional, because it would make snapping to the vertical borders very complicated/impossible. For the same reasons maybe also the dropping to the upper horizontal border should be optional.
I think both options (dropping to the horizontal / vertical borders) are very useful, but depending on how the user uses the desktop divider, he should be able to (de-)activate them.


----

1. Another thing: It is almost impossible to get a clear 3x3-Grid (so 9 tiles of equal size). There should be an option to uniformly distribute all collumns / rows or something like that.

2. Assume you have a clear 3x3-Grid and you want to distribute 3 windows on this grid in a specific way:
One window should fill the 4 tiles in the upper-left-corner.
One window should fill the 3 tiles to the right (so it is one large vertical strip oh the right side of the monitor).
One window should fill the 2 leftover grids in the bottom-left-corner.

At the moment there are two ways to do this:
a) Move and resize the windows manually with the help of snapping.
b) Don't make a 3x3-Grid, but a grid with only 3 tiles arranged as described above.

Variant a) works but is very tedious.
Variant b) works, but you have to create a specific tile-layout for a specific window-arrangement. When you have a general 3x3-Grid, you have dozens of possibilities to arrange your windows on this grid.

My idea is the following: In the "Put into..."-Window i can select exactly one Tile to put (move and maximize) a window in. So you could add the following: If i press a certain modifier key (for example ctrl), i have to select the upper-left tile, and the bottom-right tile of the area the window  should be maximized to.

I hope you understand what i mean :)

This is just an idea, i don't know if somebody actually needs this ;)
 
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