When selecting an option that changes dialog size, auth dialog moves

[Ryan Thompson]

In Network Manager, when connecting to an encrypted network, NM provides a dialog to fill out the authentication details. Choosing an option from the "Authentication" dropdown menu can potentially resize the window to fit its contents. When this happens, the window is also moved to its default position. This is inconvenient if one is trying to read off a description of network settings, and NM's window keeps covering the description after the selection. Selecting an option that resizes the window should not also move it.

Steps to reproduce:

- Try to connect to a new encrypted wireless network that NM doesnt know about. Get the auth dialog.
- Move the auth dialog away from its default position.
- Select an option from the "Authentication" dropdown menu
- The dialog window will move back to its original position. Expected behavior is to resize but keep its position constant. Speficially, the title bar should not move.

I'm using Metacity, if that makes a difference.

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

I'm not sure I understand this bug. When I select the Authentication dropdown from the dialog, I'm only presented with 4 options, so the window doesn't need resizing. Do you get more than those four options, so many that the window needs to be resized to fit?

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

The resizing is not an issue. To clarify, different authentication
options have different numbers and kinds of fields to fill in. For
example, WEP only has a text field and a check box, whereas WPA
enterprise has many sub-options of various types. Furthermore, some of
those sub-options also have their own varying number of sub-options.
In general, some options, when changed, affect the number and type of
other options available, and when these options are changed, the
dialog is resized to fit the new set of options, even if the new set
of options is exactly the same size.

The problem is, however, that in addition to resizing itself, the
dialog also centers itself on the screen, rather than holding its
position. This is inappropriate, at least after the user has moved the
dialog. A possible compromise might be this: if the user has never
moved the dialog box, keep the current behavior. Once the user moves
the dialog box, it never moves itself again.

Also, the "Create a new wireless network" dialog shows the same
behavior. This is easier to test because you don't have to go find
someone else's encrypted network to try it.

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

Thanks for the clarification, I understand now. We need to determine if this is a bug in the network manager GUI code, or a window manager bug. I don't have any wireless networks to test this on at the moment, so can you confirm this using a different window manager (e.g. Compiz)?

[Ryan Thompson (rct86)]

Identical behavior in Compiz. When the dialog moves itself, it always centers itself on the screen, taking into account its new size. This must be in the NM code, because I've never heard of any window manager doing that.

[Gabe Gorelick (gabegorelick)]

Thanks, just had to be sure.