Windows on dual-monitor system minimize away from the dock

[Lee Pfeifer]

On systems with a dual-monitor configuration, when a window is minimized it animates down and to the right (on the left monitor) and down and to left (on the right monitor) rather than having the animation shrink it down towards the dock.

I believe the issue has to do with the way the video driver supports dual-monitor displays. I have an Nvidia GTX560ti (Driver version 304.48) and I am running in TwinView mode, which essentially treats both displays as a single large display. While each of my displays are running at 1680x1050, the driver is treating it as a single monitor displaying at 3360x1050.

Now when you minimize a window, best as I can tell, Gala animates the window down and to the center of the screen, where it expects Plank to be. But since Gala actually thinks it's on a single, 3360x1050 display, because of how Nvidia TwinView reports the resolution, it animates the window down and to the right (on the left monitor) and down and to the left (on the right monitor) since, technically, that is the center of a 3360x1050 display and where Gala thinks Plank ought to be.

So, at this point I'm not really sure if it should even be marked as a bug since, technically, Gala is behaving as intended. But I'm submitting it regardless and I'll let the developers sort it out.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: elementary OS 0.2
Package: elementary-desktop 1.284-0~355~precise1 [origin: LP-PPA-elementary-os-daily]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-33.52-generic 3.2.31
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-33-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu15+elementary3~precise1
Architecture: amd64
CrashDB: elementary_meta
Date: Tue Nov 20 20:08:01 2012
InstallationMedia: elementary OS 0.2 "Luna" - Beta 1 amd64 (20121114)
MarkForUpload: True
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: elementary-meta
SuspiciousXErrors:

ThirdParty: True
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[adredz (red-adaya)]

I think it's not a driver issue. Mine is Intel HD 2000 and I get the same behavior.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Plank does not handle animations of minimizing windows. We set the icon geometry X hint for windows and leave the actual animation up to the WM.

[Robert Dyer (psybers)]

Ok I know what Gala is doing here. Since Plank sets the region to (0, 0, 0, 0) Gala is still animating the minimize (whereas most WMs would just show no animation in this case) and attempting to animate to where it thinks Plank is.

I personally would prefer windows still minimize to Plank even when hidden, so Rico's branch will fix that (not just in Gala).

[RobinJ (robinj)]

Same here