Maximize Window Bug - Using Workspaces

[Lonnie Lee Best]

The code that gets initiated when a window is maximize is flawed in regards to which workspace it targets for maximization.

When a window becomes maximized it should always maximize to the workspace "where the mouse-cursor was at" at the time that the maximization was initiated. Yet, in Unity, the windows manager will maximize to a different workspace if a certain portion of that window is outside the bounds of the current workspace.

To easily reproduce this undesired behavior:

1) Enable Workspaces:
System Settings > Appearance > Behavior > Enable Workspaces

2) Drag any maximizable window (of any application) to the bottom of the screen, so that its title-bar is still visible on the current workspace, but a fair portion overflows into the underneath-workspace.

3) Maximize the window.

Result: It will maximize the window to another workspace than the workspace you were in at the time of the maximization.

Watch the video posted in this bug:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/utopic/+source/remmina/+bug/1370014

A direct link to the video:
http://youtu.be/wKGLff7HhS8

In that video, at the beginning, if I were to have maximized that window, it would send it to the bottom (wrong) workspace. Because of that fact, you can see how much trouble it took to achieve the desired result of maximizing it in the currently focused workspace.

Although that is a different bug, you can see how much that bug would have benefited if the Window-Maximization code was based on the workspace "where the mouse-cursor was at" at the time of maximization.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: unity 7.2.3+14.04.20140826-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-44.73-generic 3.13.11-ckt12
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-44-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.14.1-0ubuntu3.6
Architecture: amd64
CompizPlugins: No value set for `/apps/compiz-1/general/screen0/options/active_plugins'
CurrentDesktop: Unity
Date: Wed Feb 4 09:18:46 2015
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-11-23 (73 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140722.2)
SourcePackage: unity
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Lonnie Lee Best (launchpad-startport)]

I determined my window manager with this command:

wmctrl -m :

Name: Compiz
Class: N/A
PID: N/A
Window manager's "showing the desktop" mode: OFF

[Christopher Townsend (townsend)]

This was a conscious decision to maximize a window in a different workspace if >50% of the window is in a different workspace. I believe Design felt that if a user makes a decision to put over half a window in another workspace, that window is really intended for that workspace.

This is solely a Compiz issue and will remove the Unity tasks. I think there are other bugs in Compiz roughly about this issue, but I haven't looked for them yet to duplicate this bug. In the meantime, I'm also going to make this a wishlist item as we should think about making this behavior configurable as different users could want different behaviors.