Nautilus is now placing desktop icons far away from the launcher

[Marc Deslauriers]

Since updating Precise a couple of days ago, nautilus is now putting desktop icons too far away from the launcher. This looks weird. See screenshot.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: nautilus 1:3.3.5-0ubuntu3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-17.26-generic 3.2.6
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 1.91-0ubuntu1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Feb 20 08:30:05 2012
GsettingsChanges: org.gnome.nautilus.window-state geometry '1077x791+391+146'
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Alpha amd64 (20110302)
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to precise on 2012-01-03 (47 days ago)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, I've noticed that as well but nautilus didn't change recently so I wonder if that's bug #936675 or similar (compiz). Is you launcher configured to be always on screen or autohidden?

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Ah, yes, this does appear to be a compiz bug. I can actually see compiz moving the nautilus window out of the way of the launcher instead of making the launcher draw over it. It's pretty clear when you switch the launcher auto-hide on and off.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Actually, looking at this a bit closer, this _is_ in fact a nautilus issue.

It is caused by the 02_additional_marge_for_unity.patch in nautilus that assumes (incorrectly) that the unity launcher is always 66 pixels wide:

+#define UNITY_LAUNCHER_WIDTH 66

+ if (under_unity_session && (x == UNITY_LAUNCHER_WIDTH))

Since the default launcher size has changed, and is now ajustable in g-c-c, this assumption is wrong.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

bug #938999 has a candidate patch:
https://launchpadlibrarian.net/93794979/nautilus_left_margin.patch

the patch doesn't seem to deal with dynamic values though, the margin should probably depends of if the launcher is autohidden or not and from its size value

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

That patch doesn't fix the detection issue with the new unity launcher default size.

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

That bug does concider the fact that the desktop icon container shall be unchanged idependent of whether the kauncher is visible or not. That (design decision?) is stated in bug #684649.

The the left margin might be decreased or adjusted but not too low as this causes side effect especially with the launcher popping up as soon as one drags an icon on the screen.

Furthermore, the launcher's margin is registered i X and received from XGetWindowProperty. For a 32 pix wide launcher the left margin received is 49 pixels and for a hidden launcher it's 0 pixels. Tthis is why adding 66-15=51 to that left margin causes this issue.

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

Another better solution is to always register the left margin (launcher width + any pad) to X independent of whether the launcher is visible or not and remove the adjustment "left += UNITY_LAUNCHER_WIDTH - 15".

The pros is that there is no "visible" empty column between a visible launcher and the left most icons. The cons is that desktop icons will move when you change the launcher width.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Well, having the desktop icons move when you change the launcher width may be a good thing, as right now when you adjust the launcher size, you either get too much space between the icons and the launcher, or you get the launcher drawing over the left side of the icons.

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

Just tested the moving icon scenario now and found two side-effects:

Glitching
------------
What happens here is that the desktop icon workarea is updated three times!
- first update with a correct value for left margin
- second update with left margin = 0 !!!
- third update with a correct value for left margin

Expected: one update only

The second and third updates cause the glitch as the icons here are moved to the left edge and then back again to its correct posisions. This is probably doable to fix as the unity session is active and by assuming that a left margin = 0 is always wrong. Other possible ways are to find the root cause why there are three updates instead of one and/or why the left margin = 0 in the second update.

Icons moving out of screen
-------------------------------------
This one I guess is a showstopper for this scenario.

Assume a launcher width equals 32 and with some desktop icons placed at the right edge of the screen. Increasing the launcher width to 64 here will partly move those icons away from the screen but still possible to grab and drag back into the screen. There is no mechanism implemented as I know of in nautilus atm to do a re-layout of the icons and even if there were one this could cause icons to overlap eachother on the right side.

Thus, remains the static left margin >= 64 that cause a "white" space between the launcher and icons on the left side. Looks buggy and wastes horizontal space but works.

My conclusion is that there is no perfect (precise) solution to this.

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

How about asking unity-launcher via dbus what size it's rendering at? (or pulling the setting directly out of gsettings/gconf?)

Having icons on the right side of the screen be moved insn't exactly ideal, but that's following a user initiated action of resizing the launcher, so presumably the user will understand that and move their icons back.

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

Yes, that could be a workaround until we find out why reveived screen window margins sometimes have incorrect values. However, imo a final solution shall trust those margins and that those are the root cause of the problem.

Margins here shall be controlled by Unity but I suspect that there are other players around too such as compiz that set/change those margins, mainly thinking of the left margin for the launcher.

Then it's a question of how it should work. Just noticed, using launcher never hide mode, that desktop icons today really moves when changing the launcher width. Also checked in oneiric that acted the same way and there without any flickering, which thus has been introduced in precise. However, for launcher autohide mode the the desktop icons don't move, i.e appear static! An intentional behaviour? Another strange behaviour I noticed is that the leftmost desktop icons are moved below the launcher for the case setting the launcher width to 49!

But the question remains, how shall it work? Is there any design decision made here?

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

the nautilus patch is not needed anymore now that we don't have intellihide.

Either, we have "always locked launcher" and so the STRUT is put on the desktop and nautilus will automatically move the icon view, either we have "autohide", where the launcher is hidden by default and so we can have icon on the far left.

I'll remove this piece of code after beta1.

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

> launcher is hidden by default and so we can have icon on the far left.

Well, that would be great, but implies another launcher behavior when you drag an icon, right?

As is today the hidden launcher always pops up when you drag an icon on the desktop which prevents you from using that leftmost part. So that means you instead have to trigger the launcher the usual way to throw an icon in the trash bin.

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli (didrocks)]

@bowmore: not needed, as when you drag until the leftmost part of the launcher, it disappears for that purpose (as you would have no other way for maximized app when you want to drop on the left part ;)).

[Bowmore (bowmore)]

Tested that during the weekend but it didn't work then but for some magic reason now it mostly does :)

> you would have no other way for maximized app when you want to drop on the left part

Not sure what you mean here but probably a strong reason to keep the behaviour.

However, not happy with that autohide launcher behaviour:
- makes it less intuitive with reversed triggering
- makes it harder to rearrange icons in the leftmost column
- causes distraction (annoyance) when rearranging icons
But never mind, it's just my opinion ;)

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

The patch is dropped in the vcs as Didier suggested, that will be part of the next upload

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package nautilus - 1:3.3.90-0ubuntu4

---------------
nautilus (1:3.3.90-0ubuntu4) precise; urgency=low

  * debian/control.in:
    - Build-Depends on libzeitgeist-dev
  * debian/patches/02_additional_marge_for_unity.patch:
    - dropped, it's not required with the current launcher hidding
      behaviour (it was to deal with intellihide) and create margin issues
      (lp: #936958)
  * debian/patches/zg_activity_logging.patch:
    - "Logging file creation and move events with Zeitgeist will make sure
       they can be found from Unity", thanks Siegfried Gevatter (lp: #927544)

  [ Michael Terry ]
  * debian/patches/22_fix_crash_from_extra_slot_ref.patch:
    - Don't crash when emptying the trash while unmounting an SD card
      LP: #929031
 -- Sebastien Bacher <email address hidden> Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:24:46 +0100

[abhijeet (abhijeetnayak)]

My Ubuntu has Nautilus 3.3.90, still I am facing this issue. Also I have updated my system with latest packages.
Will this fix be released along with final release of Ubuntu??

[Vadim Rutkovsky (roignac)]

@abhijeet, yes, this fix is already available in Precise Beta and will be available in Precise release

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

open a new bug with a screenshot if you still get the issue

[abhijeet (abhijeetnayak)]

I have already raised a bug for it and attached the screen shot with the bug.
Bug: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/+bug/946462
But this bug has been marked a duplicate of this bug.

Do you still want me to raise another bug?

[Vadim Rutkovsky (roignac)]

abhijeet, I've unmarked bug 946462 as duplicate

[Britt Yazel (bwyazel)]

I do not know if this is pertaining to the same issue, but bug 955676 is dealing with icon locations moving when switching from Gnome-Shell to Unity. There are 3 attached screenshots as well showing the before and after.