Windows maximize on the wrong monitor

Bug #760240 reported by Aaron Bentley
126
This bug affects 26 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ayatana Design
Triaged
Critical
John Lea
Compiz
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
Compiz Core
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned
compiz (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

With a multi-monitor setup, maximizing a window that is on the secondary monitor using the title bar maximize button causes it to be moved to the primary monitor and maximized there.

For windows maximizing on the wrong workspace, see bug 776435 instead.

Aaron Bentley (abentley)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Bilal Akhtar (bilalakhtar) wrote :

Can you confirm that the entire window is on the secondary monitor prior to pressing the maximize button?

FYI You can maximize a window on the secondary monitor by dragging its title bar to the top panel on the secondary monitor.

Changed in unity:
status: New → Incomplete
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
wesdeboer (wesdeboer) wrote :

I'm experiencing the same problem. I put a window on the secondary monitor, can be a small window that is nowhere near entering the primary monitor and when I press maximize button, double click the title bar, or any other means of maximizing it always jumps to the primary monitor and maximizes there.

Unmaximizing that window results in the window being placed back into its original location/size on the secondary monitor.

Using the grid to drag the window to the top panel bar on the secondary monitor also maximizes it on the primary monitor.

Revision history for this message
palewire (ben-welsh) wrote :

I have this same problem with Natty Narwhal, but only with certain monitors. I have a Dell Inspiron latop. When I plug it into a square Dell monitor, it will work fine. When I use a wider Dell monitor, I have this exact bug. A window of any size in the VGA secondary monitor will jump to the laptop's window on maximization, either by button or by drag.

Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for unity (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
Revision history for this message
Sean DS (se4n-1) wrote :

I still have this problem.

 I can't maximize windows on the second monitor IF AND ONLY IF the window is bigger than the monitor size, this is often the case because my primary monitor is bigger than the secondary, dragging windows from smaller to larger works as expected but not the other way around.

Works as expected IF AND ONLY IF the window is smaller than or equal to the monitor size when dragged accross from the other screen.

Marking as confirmed.

Changed in unity:
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
Changed in unity (Ubuntu):
status: Expired → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Aethralis (aethralis) wrote :

I can confirm this problem in Precise. I have however problem that windows from my primary monitor get maximized to the secondary monitor. Resolutions are (1280x800 primary and 1280x1024 seconday).

Revision history for this message
Edwin Lee (leeed2001) wrote :

I am running Precise on a laptop with 1920x1080. When I run with an external monitor with the same resolution, everything works well. When I plug into a projector and the resolution is less than that of my primary monitor, it always wants to maximize to the primary screen. (Using different maximize methods, and making sure the window is fully on the second screen--dropping it--then maximizing it). I am running nvidia from x/swat. (nvidia-current 295.53-0ubuntu1~precise~xup1)

summary: - cannot maximize window to secondary monitor
+ Windows maximize on the wrong monitor
affects: unity → compiz
affects: unity (Ubuntu) → compiz (Ubuntu)
Changed in compiz-core:
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in compiz:
milestone: none → 0.9.8.0
description: updated
tags: added: multimonitor
Revision history for this message
Éric Piel (pieleric) wrote :

Here is my understanding of the mis-behaviour:
 1. you need at least two monitors, with different resolutions
 2. open a resizable window on the smallest monitor (example: gedit)
 3. If the has a vertical (resp. horizontal) size bigger than the small monitor _and_ smaller than the big monitor, when you maximize it, it is automatically moved to the big monitor (but its original size and position are still remembered in the small monitor). In other words, if the window size is so large that it doesn't fit in the big monitor it stays in the small monitor.

I'd say the expected behaviour is that the window is placed on the monitor which has the largest intersection area with the window.

Revision history for this message
Dominik Sommer (dominik.sommer) wrote :

I added a video capture of this issue to #966547, before marking that bug as duplicate of this one. Hope that helps for fixing it.

@Éric: I would agree to the expected behavious you proposed. I would add that if the window is maximized by dragging it to the top, it should maximize to the monitor it is dragged to (compared to the behaviour seen in the video capture).

Revision history for this message
Thomas Kluyver (takluyver) wrote :

What Éric describes seems to match what I see on Precise.

I'd like to add that, when I drag a window to the top of the small monitor, the orange highlight indicates that it will be maximised on that (small) monitor, but when I release the mouse, the window jumps to the large monitor. So the code that produces the orange window-will-go-here rectangle behaves how I want, at least.

For expected behaviour, I'd agree with Éric, except that if I drag a window to the top, it should maximise to the screen my mouse is on. This is how smaller windows already behave.

Revision history for this message
Alan Pope 🍺🐧🐱 🦄 (popey) wrote :

I agree with Éric that the window overhangs the edge of the window is what triggers the window to maximise on the wrong screen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4yamCm2mqc

John Lea (johnlea)
Changed in ayatana-design:
importance: Undecided → Critical
status: New → Triaged
assignee: nobody → John Lea (johnlea)
tags: added: udp
Revision history for this message
Daniel van Vugt (vanvugt) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. This particular bug has already been reported and is a duplicate of bug 751605, so it is being marked as such. Please look at the other bug report to see if there is any missing information that you can provide, or to see if there is a workaround for the bug. Additionally, any further discussion regarding the bug should occur in the other report. Feel free to continue to report any other bugs you may find.

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