[SRU] Center windows option has no effect

[Nguyễn Xuân Minh]

[ Impact ]

 * The configuration manager for Openbox, obconf-qt, has an option to center new windows. In versions previous to 1.6.2, the checkbox had no effect and would appear unchecked when reopening the application. There's no error, but a silent failure.

 * To make matters more confusing, the default settings for Lubuntu, where Openbox is the default window manager, include setting the related setting to on. In other words, the default behavior is to center the windows, but when you look at the configuration manager, it does not appear to be the case.

 * In addition, the function is maybe not what one would intuitively expect. It does not center every window, but prefers to place windows in the center if free space is available. So the first window will be centered, but if a second one is placed, it will open in the periphery. This will continue until the full space is occupied and then windows will open again in the center and the cycle repeats.

 * These three factors make for a really confusing experience for the end user.

 * The delta is very small, merely adding in an on toggled event.

[ Test Plan ]

 * To reproduce the bug:
   1. Use a Lubuntu Jammy ISO
   2. Inspect the default configuration file /etc/xdg/xdg-Lubuntu/openbox/rc.xml and note that the <center> tag under <placement> is set to "yes."
   3. Note that a local configuration file ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml does not exist
   4. Open obconf-qt (see Preferences → LXQt Settings → Openbox Settings)
   5. Click on the Windows tab on the left
   6. Note that "Center new windows when placed" is unchecked
   7. Check the check box and hit close
   8. Note that the default configuration file is unchanged but a new local configuration file is created where <center> is set to "yes"
   9. Open the Windows tab in obconf-qt again and note that the check box is still unchecked
  10. Check and uncheck the box (which should set center to "no")
  11. Note that the <center> tag is still set to "yes" in the local configuration

 * To test the fix
   1. Use a Lubuntu Jammy ISO
   2. Install the new version of obconf-qt
   3. Remembering that centering is the default in the configuration file and the buggy version shows that it is not checked, open obconf-qt and note that now the option *is* checked
   4. Uncheck the box
   5. Inspect the local configuration file and note that <center> is now set to "no"

[ Where problems could occur ]

 * Honestly, I think the only problem that could occur is that, based on the string description of the setting, users may expect all new windows to open in the center. That certainly is what it is described, but it's not the case. In fact, even the comment in the configuration file, while being slightly more descriptive, is still not exactly correct ("whether to place windows in the center of the free area found or the top left corner").

[ Other Info ]

 * One additional part to the upload is an update to the watch file. In an ideal world, the SRU wouldn't have included this, but it was necessary to use uscan to download the source. It will have no negative effect.

[ԜаӀtеr Ⅼарсһуnѕkі (wxl)]

Something is really weird here, even outside of what problem there MAY be with obconf-qt.

The setting for this in the Openbox config is `<placement><center>yes</center></placement>` which is a default part of the Lubuntu configuration (and technically Debian and upstream Openbox, too).

The option is relatively new as previous centering solutions were buggy, as evidenced by this bug:
https://bugzilla.icculus.org/show_bug.cgi?id=5946

However, as you can see there, it was resolved with a new commit:
https://github.com/danakj/openbox/commit/f866c034bf6e954791442ff029d5ae51ab0bd616

Despite all that, I can't get it to work no way, no how.

That said, I'm going to add Openbox and investigate a bit further.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Chris Guiver (guiverc)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu.

Ubuntu 21.04 (hirsute) reached end-of-life on January 20, 2022.
Ubuntu 20.10 (groovy) reached end-of-life on July 22, 2021.

See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

We appreciate that this bug may be old and you might not be interested in discussing it any more. But if you are then please upgrade to the latest Ubuntu version and re-test. If you then find the bug is still present in the newer Ubuntu version, please add a comment here telling us which new version it is in.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Hello Nguyễn, or anyone else affected,

Accepted obconf-qt into jammy-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/obconf-qt/0.16.0-1ubuntu2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-jammy to verification-done-jammy. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-jammy. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

Mantic has 1.6.2, which does not have this bug. Marking Ubuntu task as fix-released.