gnome-shell window title bar wastes space when maximized

[Damiön la Bagh]

Steps to reproduce
Start Ubuntu
Login to Unity
Choose logoff
Choose Ubuntu (which should have the label Gnome-hell)

Note this is the only way to get Gnome-hell to start, starting it directly just shows a black screen and dumps you back to the greeter. (already created a bug report for that)

Open a program
Choose the Maximize icon alllll the way over on the right (thanks Gnome-shell devs for causing more Mouse Arm for people with Hi-res screens, instead of just moving the mouse up to the top to click my button, I now have to move it all the way across the screen to the right)

The window maximizes but not to full screen. I get a weird double bar, with the clock bar and the window title bar wasting valuable pixels.

On my professional systems at work, this means I can display one less product on the screen, products being more important than the titel of the window.

Please hide the window title when maximized. (or make it at least optional)

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: gnome-shell 3.28.2-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-32.35-generic 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-32-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.2
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Aug 15 23:53:59 2018
DisplayManager: lightdm
GsettingsChanges:
 b'org.gnome.shell' b'favorite-apps' redacted by apport
 b'org.gnome.desktop.interface' b'gtk-im-module' b"'gtk-im-context-simple'"
InstallationDate: Installed on 2015-11-15 (1004 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.3 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Beta amd64 (20150805)
SourcePackage: gnome-shell
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to bionic on 2018-08-15 (0 days ago)

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

See the screenshot
50px have been wasted here!
On my 1280x1024 production screens for my business 50px is an extra line of text. Two if I use a smaller font.

I noticed that the Opera browser has figured out a way around this and hides the unnecessary title bar when maximized. Maybe we can learn from Opera and make this behavior default?

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

See here in this screenshot. The 50px are used for the Application which is much more important than gnome-shell.

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Confirmed, but I think this is also an intentional design decision.

Please open the issue with the Gnome people here:

  https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues

and then let us know the ID of the new bug.

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

Reported upstream to the Gnome-shell devs

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-shell/issues/493

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

BTW> Workaround to the buttons on the right (which only makes sense for right to left languages ) was to install Gnome-tweak tool.

In Left to Right languages having the buttons on the left means less mouse travel on high res screens to click the button. This was just good well thought out and tested design.

[Damiön la Bagh (kat-amsterdam)]

So here is the upstream answer:

Window decorations are client-side on wayland, that means they are just another part of the application window the same way as the products you are viewing. We cannot tell what parts of the window are decorations, or whether there are in fact any decorations at all. It's entirely up to applications to adjust to window state changes if they desire.

(In the X11 session, there is a _GTK_HIDE_TITLEBAR_WHEN_MAXIMIZED hint that applications can set, and you'll find extensions that apply that to any windows. But X11 is a legacy technology at this point, and we won't add any features based on that.)

As Ubuntu 18.04 is a LTS release still using X11 for compatibility can the Ubuntu project please add the _GTK_HIDE_TITLEBAR_WHEN_MAXIMIZED hint as a toggle?

[Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt)]

Sounds like a good idea. But _GTK_HIDE_TITLEBAR_WHEN_MAXIMIZED would have do be done for each app separately. It's not something the shell does.

So this bug is now closed for gnome-shell, and should be reopened with tasks for each affected application. To do that click on "Also affects distribution/package" at the top of the bug.