ruler invisible

[Thomas]

The ruler is not visible in my Unity desktop. I can switch with ALT-TAB to it , but nothing is shown. There is a launcher icon visible only.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: screenruler 0.960+bzr41-1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-39.62-generic 3.2.39
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-39-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: prl_fs_freeze prl_fs prl_tg prl_eth
ApportVersion: 2.0.1-0ubuntu17.1
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Apr 16 10:31:14 2013
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Release amd64 (20120425)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/usr/bin/zsh
SourcePackage: screenruler
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Marcello Romani (marcello-romani)]

Here's what I get if I launch screenruler from a terminal window:

Loading libraries...
Creating windows...
./utils/glade_window.rb: line 29
   Gtk-WARNING **:Unknown property: GtkWindow.has-resize-grip
Reading settings...
Presenting ruler...

At this point the application icon appears in the taskbar, on the left, but nothing is displayed on the screen.

[Marcello Romani (marcello-romani)]

For the record, kruler has no problem.

[Ian McIntosh (ian-mcintosh)]

This could be related to the "window type hint" of the ruler window.

I remember having a hard time finding one that had reasonable behavior on the desktops of the day.

If anyone on Unity wants to experiment with that, it's the ruler_window.glade file "type_hint" field.

[Marcello Romani (marcello-romani)]

It looks like the bug's been fixed in one of the latest updates.

The screenruler package version is unchanged, but several packages where updated since I first reported the bug.
For example uname -a now reports:

Linux <computername> 3.2.0-49-generic #75-Ubuntu SMP Tue Jun 18 17:39:32 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

On my part this bug can be considered fixed.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

I tested a bit and found the following:
a) Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity: ruler not visible.
b) Ubuntu 12.04 with a different window manager (awesome): ruler visible
c) Ubuntu 12.10 with Unity: ruler visible

So it might be due to how Unity on 12.04 attempts to draw the ruler, since it seems to work in other desktop environments on the same release. Furthermore it looks like whatever it is, it has been fixed in 12.10 and presumably newer releases.

Marcello: are you still running Unity on Ubuntu 12.04, or did that change between your first and last comment? I haven't been able to get it to show up with that combination so it would be interesting to hear if you got it to work. :)

[Marcello Romani (marcello-romani)]

Hi!

Yes, I'm still running 12.04. To be precise:

cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=12.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=precise
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS"

dpkg -l | grep screenruler
screenruler 0.960+bzr41-1

and the ruler is visible. Moreover, it stays on top no matter which window I switch to.

So it's a "fixed" to me.

[Hans Joachim Desserud (hjd)]

Marcello: Sounds good. Could this possibly have something to do with the version of Unity running? I'm testing this on a virtual machine and it seems to fall back to unity-2d.

$ ps -ef | grep unity
ubuntu 2270 2191 0 14:05 ? 00:00:01 unity-2d-panel
ubuntu 2271 2191 1 14:05 ? 00:00:06 unity-2d-shell
ubuntu 2304 1 0 14:05 ? 00:00:01 /usr/lib/unity/unity-panel-service
ubuntu 2421 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/unity-lens-applications/unity-applications-daemon
ubuntu 2424 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/unity-lens-files/unity-files-daemon
ubuntu 2425 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/unity-lens-music/unity-music-daemon
ubuntu 2427 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/unity-lens-video/unity-lens-video
ubuntu 2499 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/lib/unity-lens-music/unity-musicstore-daemon
ubuntu 2508 1 0 14:06 ? 00:00:00 /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/unity-scope-video-remote/unity-scope-video-remote
ubuntu 3860 2618 0 14:14 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto unity

[Marcello Romani (marcello-romani)]

I keep my Ubuntu 12.04 regularly updated.
Apparently I run unity 5.20 and unity-2d 5.14.

me@mylaptop:~$ dpkg -l | grep -i unity

ii banshee-community-extensions 2.4.0-1ubuntu1 set of community contributed extensions for Banshee
ii banshee-extensions-common 2.4.0-1ubuntu1 common files for banshee-community-extensions
ii gir1.2-unity-5.0 5.12.0-0ubuntu1.1 GObject introspection data for the Unity library
ii libmeanwhile1 1.0.2-4ubuntu1 open implementation of the Lotus Sametime Community Client protocol
ii libunity-2d-private0 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Unity 2D shared library
rc libunity-core-4.0-4 4.28.0-0ubuntu2 Core library for the Unity interface.
ii libunity-core-5.0-5 5.20.0-0ubuntu2 Core library for the Unity interface.
ii libunity-misc4 4.0.4-0ubuntu2 Miscellaneous functions for Unity - shared library
ii libunity6 4.0.6-0ubuntu3 binding to get places into the launcher - shared library
ii libunity9 5.12.0-0ubuntu1.1 binding to get places into the launcher - shared library
ii unity 5.20.0-0ubuntu2 Interface designed for efficiency of space and interaction.
ii unity-2d 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Unity interface for non-accelerated graphics cards
ii unity-2d-common 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Common files for Unity 2D Shell
ii unity-2d-launcher 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Transitional package for unity-2d-launcher
ii unity-2d-panel 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Unity 2D Panel
ii unity-2d-places 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Transitional package for unity-2d-places
ii unity-2d-shell 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Dash and Launcher for the Unity 2D environment
ii unity-2d-spread 5.14.0-0ubuntu1 Unity 2D Spread
ii unity-asset-pool 0.8.23-0ubuntu1 Unity Assets Pool
ii unity-common ...

[Ben van Setten (ben-launchpad)]

Ruler does not show in Ubuntu Artful because of a missing dependency.

When started from a terminal it results in an error message: "/usr/lib/ruby/2.3.0/rubygems/core_ext/kernel_require.rb:55:in `require': cannot load such file -- cairo-gobject (LoadError)".

I did "sudo aptitude install ruby-cairo-gobject" to make it work.