Evolution ignores tile window commands in GNOME

[Donald Pellegrino]

As per the Help "Ubuntu Desktop Guide -> Desktop -> Applications and windows -> Windows and workspaces -> Windows" documentation for "Tile windows:"

"To maximize a window along a side of the screen, grab the titlebar and drag it to the left or right side until half of the screen is highlighted. Using the keyboard, hold down Super and press the Left or Right key."

When the Evolution main window has focus, the Super + Left and Super + Right commands are ignored. Additionally, it does not snap to the left or right when the titlebar is grabbed and dragged to either side of the screen.

All other GNOME apps do behave as expected. Testing was done with a GNOME/Xorg session.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 17.10
Package: evolution 3.26.1-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.13.0-21.24-generic 4.13.13
Uname: Linux 4.13.0-21-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.7-0ubuntu3.7
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Mon Jan 8 13:34:57 2018
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2017-08-12 (149 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 17.04 "Zesty Zapus" - Release amd64 (20170412)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: evolution
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to artful on 2017-10-21 (78 days ago)

[Andre Klapper (a9016009)]

What is your screen size? I am afraid that the Evolution window needs a certain minimum width and if that width is more than 50% of your screen width this might fail? (Just a theory!)

[Andre Klapper (a9016009)]

This should be moved to gnome-shell instead; see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=636416

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

Affects me too. Interestingly, it works sometimes, but sometimes not. I have not been able to track down what causes it to fail.

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

It is the "side bar". If this is visible, Evolution refuses to go below a certain width (which is just larger than half my screen). Then maximize-right does not work. How do I remove the size limit with the "side bar" active?

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

Just read that other bug. So this is a ten year old bug that nobody has bothered addressing. IMHO there is no reason for that limit. Everything Evolution would need to show with the side bar visible is still viewable with a smaller width. The limit seems completely arbitrary.

Is this configurable or is it hard-coded?

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

As far as I understand, this is not a problem with gnome-shell, unless one wants to remove all limitations.

This particular bug resides within Evolution, since it requests a minimal size which seems, at least to me, just too big.

The side bar requests too much space.

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

It seems the space is requested by the calendar widget. But this still has plenty of whitespace.

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

I'll just put some notes here for future possible use.

If I understand this correctly it is called date_navigator in the source. It is mentioned in src/modules/calendar/e-cal-base-shell-sidebar.c

The construction appears to be at cal_base_shell_sidebar_constructed(), line 750 at `widget = e_calendar_new ();`

The packing of the widgets appears to be done at line 757 at `gtk_paned_pack2 (GTK_PANED (container), widget, FALSE, FALSE);`

The alternatives include: decrease the spacing inside the widget, or allow the container to have a smaller width than the date_navigator widget.

[Jan-Åke Larsson (jalar)]

That last Boolean value answers "can this child be made smaller than its requisition"?

Could someone with a build environment test whether simply changing this call to

gtk_paned_pack2 (GTK_PANED (container), widget, FALSE, TRUE);

fixes the issue?