Gnome wine runs programs without minimize button and with type-through

[André Pirard]

Subject almost says it all.
System is Ubuntu 8.04 alpha 6 with embarked wine 0.9.56.
App is this : http://www.angusj.com/sudoku/
App cannot be minimized because there's no minimize button.
Minimize is greyed out in the panel's windows list too.
(Same for Maximize and Resize)
Top of window screenshot attached.
Simple Sudoku is not the only program in that case.
The two Windows games that started my interest in Wine are.

Hoping this will help.
Great job you're doing with wine, guys.

Update : additionally,
- Wine windows are always-on-top
- characters typed in one may be input to a lower window

In turns out that the bug only shows with System|Appearance|Visual Effects turned off.
This makes it invisible on fairly accelerated screens BUT unavoidable on older machines.

THIS BUG NEEDS ATTENTION if we agree that Ubuntu is made to run on cheaper hardware than what other systems need.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

I can't reproduce this with Wine 1.0-rc4.
Does this bug still occur for you with 1.0-rc4?

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Oh dear**2, even plain html no longer works.
Resending html and plain.
So bad for the alignment.

Oh dear, another bug, please someone report.
I sent e-mail with 2 parts : html + image.
Only the image made through.
I'm resending the html alone.
Please find the spoken of screenshot above.

On 2008-06-09 14:26, Jonathan Thomas wrote :
> I can't reproduce this with Wine 1.0-rc4.
> Does this bug still occur for you with 1.0-rc4?
I wanted to double check after a clean Hardy install.
And here I am, having just installed Wine 1.1.0.
And yes, the bug still occurs.

In fact, all Wine programs I ran with 1.0-rc4 behave the same.
(and probably 1.1 although only Simple Sudoku tested yet)
Only Wine's Notepad does not have the problem.
My programs are small games, all very old but two.

I discovered something new.
Playing with two Wine config's Graphics tab options named :

A) Allow the window manager to decorate the windows
B) Allows the windows manager to control the windows
gives different results when they're turned off.

Here are the states (hoping Fixed width makes through) :

     Min Max Minimizes to
A B
1 1 N N panel
0 1 Y N panel
X 0 Y Y desktop

Hence, only B = off allows restoring the window to the screen.
While B = on minimizes to the panel and cannot be restored,

B = off minimizes to the desktop an is very ugly.

One window went to a bottom left icon, hiding the bottom panel.
The other went to the top left, hiding the application menu.
The other ones stacked one onto another.

I attach a shot of the first case.

Hoping this helps.
Nothing strange configuration in my system.
I'd like to get rid of that.
Thanks.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Yeah, not letting your window manager control your windows isn't really supposed to be pretty. It's mainly there to deal with compatibility problems.
So, what window manager are you using? Because this bug probably lies with the window manager. Are you using compiz?

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

On 2008-07-02 16:43, Jonathan Thomas wrote :
> Yeah, not letting your window manager control your windows isn't really supposed to be pretty. It's mainly there to deal with compatibility problems.
> So, what window manager are you using? Because this bug probably lies with the window manager. Are you using compiz?
>
Thanks.
I'm not sure of the question you ask.
The bug title mentions Gnome wine ...
It's standard Wine 1.1.0 in standard Ubuntu 8.04 with latest updates.
Isn't Gnome the windows manager?
Shouldn't every Ubuntu user see the problem?
I plan to add Xfce (Xubuntu) to Ubuntu.
Would that help?

But there's an important bug anyway.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Gnome is a desktop environment, not a window manager. Gnome's default window manager is metacity, but if you have desktop effects enabled it uses Compiz Fusion. This isn't a problem in KDE, which uses KWin for its window manager.

So the question is this: Are you using desktop effects? (Like the desktop cube and wobbly windows and other stuff like that)

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

On 2008-07-02 23:28, Jonathan Thomas wrote :
> Gnome is a desktop environment, not a window manager. Gnome's default
> window manager is metacity, but if you have desktop effects enabled it
> uses Compiz Fusion. This isn't a problem in KDE, which uses KWin for its
> window manager.
>
> So the question is this: Are you using desktop effects? (Like the
> desktop cube and wobbly windows and other stuff like that
Thanks for helping me naming the details of Ubuntu.
It's standard Wine 0.92..1.1.0 in standard Ubuntu 8.04 with up to latest
updates.
So, if you speak of System|Preferences|Appearance|Visual Effects, the
answer is "None".

Generally speaking, I hate turning a system appearance into a multimedia
show.
And as the systems I'm configuring right now have partially supported
Year 2000 limited video acceleration, I have every reason to avoid
screen overload.
I welcome any method to limit screen overload.
In Xubuntu, there's a tweaking configuration where I had limited a
window to a frame when moved, etc...

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Ok, then you're using metacity. I can't reproduce this with KWin 4.1, so I'm assigning the bug to metacity.

[Marnanel Thurman (marnanel)]

André: Hi. Could you run "xprop", and click on the window which doesn't have a minimise button, and then paste the output here?

[Marnanel Thurman (marnanel)]

(Attaching it would probably be better; it can get lengthy.)

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

> Ok, then you're using metacity. I can't reproduce this with KWin 4.1, so
> I'm assigning the bug to metacity
I have added xubuntu.desktop and kubuntu.desktop to this system.

Kubuntu : no problem indeed with KWin.
Xubuntu : same problem with Xfwm4.

Hence, by the same reasoning, you should assign the bug to Xfwm4 too.

As I understand it, there is a misunderstanding between Wine and both
Metacity and Xfwm but not KWin.
When I turn off "Allow the wm to control the window" I, in fact, allow
Wine to do it instead of the host's wm.
Hence, Wine knows no better than to minimize windows on the desktop.
Moreover, it does it in a rough way (overlays panel, random way and
place, ugly look, no control at all, etc...).
This point could be improved in Wine.

As in all protocol misunderstanding cases, it's uncertain to me which
side is responsible.

I have attached the xprop output in all cases : SS_<wm>_<ws>.txt
where ws is the state of the aforementioned Wine
Configuration|Graphics|Allow... settings

11 is post-installation standard state (host does both)
10 is my half-workaround (wm does not control the window)

Hoping this will help.

André.

PS : hoping I can do it in one go this time, else please excuse disorder :-)

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

Additional information to stress how awful wine looks on Ubuntu 8.04.1.

- All wine windows run "on top" of the Ubuntu windows, making it
absolutely necessary to minimize the applications.

- And minimizing is a problem (*).

- Last but not least, I have discovered that characters typed into some
dialog boxes do not go to the windows application but to another one
"under" it.

All this with the only practical Wine settings (App|Wine|Conf.|Graph.) :
- Allow the window manager to decorate the windows
- Do not allow the window manager to control the windows

(*) See in the attached screen shot. 2 applications minimized in the
bottom left corner, one on top of the other. Just like the one that
chose to minimize in the upper left corner, they messe the panel and the
desktop. You can see that Mousepad is the window with focus but that
the maximized wine application remains on top.

[Daniel T Chen (crimsun)]

Is this symptom still reproducible in 8.10 or 9.04?

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to New. Thanks again!.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

1) I have terrible problems elsewhere preventing me to help Ubuntu for
the time being
2) I consider offensive to mark this bug as "Invalid" after the work
time I have spent on it and after having seen no followups except mine
3) I consider offensive to suggest to return it to "New" after I have
provided all asked details. It's fully confirmed.
4) I wonder why my having no time can govern the outcome of a bug anyone
can experiment; BTW, I have Confirmed it on a plain up to dated Ubuntu
8.04.1 on another hardware
5) I'm using 8.04 and I obviously cannot install Wine using a Live CD.
Does no one using 8.10 really have a few minutes to make that test
instead of asking me to find hardware to install 8.10?
6) I wonder what's the importance of Wine if nobody else complains of a
real problem.
I consider Wine as the "Portal to Linux". If other people were
packaging Windows programs to DEBs with a frontend script like I do, it
would shut the mouth of those saying that Linux lacks this or that
program (principally games) and Ubuntu would be much different with Wine
programs distributed and installed the same way as Linux programs.
7) Again, I question the methods used by Ubuntu to solve a bug. What's
the use of reporting if no developer comes to the reporter (when anyone
cannot experiment it) to ask for details? What's the use to watch every
next release in mere hope of a fix?
8) This bug exists in 8.04 and, according to what LTS means, a user
should know what updates to apply to a no-Internet-access installation
to solve it, not know that the problem is fixed in another release.
9) I wonder if I must continue to help, use and promote Ubuntu if the
result is frustration

Wine is such a important piece it deserves more attention.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

>
> We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need
> to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments.
Because no one with a running 8.10 would spend 10 min to make a check, I
have spent almost 10 hours of my unavailable time on this and here's the
result ...

1) another more powerful laptop was passing by, with a chance to install
Wine while running liveCD, and I hired it for a while
2) I downloaded and burned 8.10 desktop iso (on 8.04.1+)
Brasero told me that there was a burn error but the CD seemed perfect
3) I booted this CD and, not a given thing, WiFi was running
I ran Synaptic and, despite all sources turned on and updated, there was
no "wine" to find !!!
4) I asked the owner of this laptop if I could make a partition and he
agreed if I explained him how to make a backup and I made one
5) I fetched and burned 8.10 desktop (on 8.04.1+ again)
Brasero told me that there was a burn error but the CD was perfect
I looked into that, Brasero reports a 'device busy' error and it seems
obvious that it's because the disk has an autorun using the drive at the
same time Brasero wants to check the CD. This seems to be Bug #296146
and I wonder why that bug is "incomplete".
6) I wanted to test upgrading 8.04 to 8.10 and, after doing so, WiFi was
not working. This is another bug that took me much time to work around.
Also, there was no shutdown applet but someone who would argue it's just
aesthetics.
7) Having upgraded, I finally found wine in Synaptics and I finally was
able to make the test.

Is that what you required?
That laptop will be away in two weeks.
Please don't wait until then to ask more questions about 8.10.

Almost one year after reporting this bug, the same problem remains
exactly as described, in 8.04.1+ and 8.10+.

Is making these sorts of difficult to do tests the good method to solve
the problem? Or shouldn't the problem rather be analyzed, which I can
help effectively with 8.04 tests when I'm at it without having to
install systems that only other people run?

Friends I advised running Windows applications on 8.04.1 are asking if a
patch will be available for their system and when. What should I reply
to help them not return to Windows?

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

I installed Ubuntu 8.10 on an even more powerful and recent machine.
This bug did not show.
And yet it was present on the previous 8.10 test!

I remembered replying this to a question from Jonathan Thomas :
> So, if you speak of System|Preferences|Appearance|Visual Effects, the
> answer is "None".
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/metacity/+bug/202456/comments/9
I turned VE to "None" and there was that bug again.

CONCLUSION : this bug shows only under Visual Effects = None (metacity)

I am very sorry that my hardware made it unable to set VE to anything
else than None and that those running with Visual Effects were able to
lower VE to none but did not report making that test.

I'm sorry to use less powerful hardware.
I was under the impression that Linux was made to run on cheaper
hardware than what other systems need.

After 1 year, THIS BUG NEEDS ATTENTION if we agree on that.

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

If anyone cares, I noticed very strange screen shots of WINE windows as
I run them under this bug and with the explained ugly workaround.
Such window's screen shots are not the size of the (always on top) WINE
windows, but of the underlying one.
They may be described as being the screen shots of the underlying window
but with the content being masked by (a part of) the WINE windows.
This is corollary to "typing through".

Just if anyone cares about the ugliest looking bug I've ever seen...

[André Pirard (a.pirard)]

 After 2½ year waiting, nothing happened, except being set to
low priority, to a bug that prevented my packaging applications to Wine.
This is what I just wrote to
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2841
-----
Now running Ubuntu 10.04 (Gnome) and Wine 1.2 with "decorate" and
"control" windows set, I do see a minimize button with or without visual
effects (Metacity and Compiz). For all programs I packaged for Wine, the
Windows nicely minimize to and maximize from the Windows List.
I can resume packaging usefully.
-----
Thanks for having waited with me.