[Gossip-dev] Saving window size/position and group

[Martyn Russell]

On Mon, 2006-05-15 at 14:35 +0200, CJ van den Berg wrote:
> On Sun, May 14, 2006 at 03:00:41PM +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
> > On Thu, 2006-05-11 at 15:00 +0200, CJ van den Berg wrote:
> > > On Thu, May 11, 2006 at 02:43:15PM +0200, Mikael Hallendal wrote:
> > > > Michael Gratton skrev:
> > > > > Probably the same size it was when the user last closed it.
> > > > 
> > > > However, that doesn't work very well when taking multiple chat windows
> > > > into account. Ie. I might have one window with work related chats in and
> > > > another with private discussions. These windows might have different
> > > > sizes, which one would you save?
> > > 
> > > How about this suggestion?
> > > 
> > > For each JID you save the x,y,w,h of the chat window, *plus* a unique ID.
> > > All JIDs that share a chat window get the same unique ID. If you detach a
> > > JID from a window it gets a new, randomly generated unique ID. If you
> > > attach... etc.
> > > 
> > > When you need to open a new chat for a JID you lookup it's saved unique Id.
> > > If there is already a window open with that ID you add the new JID as a tab.
> > > If not you create an new window with the saved x,y,w,h.
> > > 
> > > This way you get properly saved window positions _and_ tab grouping.
> > 
> > Thanks for the suggestion, I personally think this is a little to
> > complicated and might confuse the user when the window geometry and tab
> > behaviour is inconsistent.
> > 
> > I have just committed work that simply stores positional coordinates
> > against contact id. It seems to work reasonably well.
> 
> Thanks!  It's an improvement.
> 
> I still think it would be a very useful to gossip remember tab groupings
> though. The way it is now is a little confusing because the position of the
> tab group window is dependant on which contact you happen to click on first.
> Wouldn't it be better to at least save the same coordinates for all contacts
> in a tab group?

I agree. But I think that if you have a separate tab group for one
contact and a window already open with 4 contacts in it, the user will
get confused if the new contact opens in their own window. It also means
that the "Open chats in separate windows" preference is not explicit, it
would mean that either:

  * You always open in a new window for chats

  or

  * You sometimes depending on the tab group use an existing window.

> On a side note, chat windows for contacts with no previously stored window
> coordinates are always opened in the top left corner of the screen.
> Apparently overriding the window manager's placing rules. That's a little
> unexpected.

Yea, those sort of things need reporting and fixing ;)

-- 
Regards,
Martyn