compiz and metacity should behave the same way

[SebastienBarthelemy]

Hello,

The window-manager changes from metacity to compiz whether you use desktop-effects or not. As they don't behave exactly the same way, this makes the ubuntu-desktop user-experience inconsistent. I noticed one example, there may be more:

When you middle-click the "Maximize" button
  - in compiz, the window is maximized vertically
  - in metacity, the window is put behind all the others

I prefer the compiz behavior, but the point here is that both compiz and metacity should share the same one.

[Marnanel Thurman (marnanel)]

This isn't really a bug in Metacity or in Compiz; what you're really asking for is either that Metacity or Compiz should be the exclusive window manager in use or that an enormous effort should be expended on making the UI of each one exactly the same in every little detail. Both of those are far more far-reaching decisions than bugs in any one package.

[SebastienBarthelemy (barthelemy)]

2008/4/26 Thomas Thurman <email address hidden>:

> This isn't really a bug in Metacity or in Compiz; what you're really
> asking for is either that Metacity or Compiz should be the exclusive
> window manager in use or that an enormous effort should be expended on
> making the UI of each one exactly the same in every little detail. Both of
> those are far more far-reaching decisions than bugs in any one package.
>

I think that

1) gnome and/or ubuntu folks should define a standard behaviour for _basic
and very common_ actions such as a click on the window contour buttons or
the ALT+TAB keyboard shortcut. Something like "gnome window manager user
interaction policy". Thus the user does not have to unlearn its reflexes
when he changes its window manager.
This policy could be quite sparse, I don't thing it' wise to include every
little detail in it.

2) the gnome and/or ubuntu folks should set up the Metacity and Compiz
default installation to meet this specification. If some window-manager
doesn't meet it => file a bug in ubuntu launchpad or gnome bugzilla for the
window-manager package.
If Metacity and Compiz are tunable this seems "easy" (what do you think ?)

3) If Metacity and Compiz are not tunable enough to meet the specification
then the upstream developers should fix this => file a bug upstream
This may be a lot of work.

by the way, I filed this bug to submit the idea, I would perfectly
understand if it is marked "won't fix"

[Marnanel Thurman (marnanel)]

I think the trouble is that Metacity is not tunable enough to do this by design: Metacity is supposed to be a small, simple window manager without a whole lot of options and bells and whistles. Of course we could patch it at the Ubuntu level to behave differently, or to be more tunable, and we could consider some kind of standard about how basic and very common actions work (although I'm not sure that "middle click on maximise button" counts as basic and very common) at, say, the freedesktop level, although currently that role is mostly filled quite reasonably by consensus. If you've found a place where that consensus falls down, such as here, I think it's not unreasonable to ask Metacity or Compiz to change their default behaviour when you middle-click the maximise button as a specific bug (at least at the Ubuntu level; since this has quite recently been the subject of a slightly heated discussion upstream, I doubt the upstream maintainers would upset the boat by changing the behaviour again now.)

[Alberts Muktupāvels (muktupavels)]

Won't Fix...