this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2024
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Confirm or reject my suspicions about the massive default window sizes (lemmy.ml)
submitted 16 hours ago by monovergent@lemmy.ml to c/linux@lemmy.ml
16 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

My laptop has a display resolution of 1366x768. Every now and then, I'll encounter a window whose default height is over 768 and thus won't fit entirely within my screen. The GTK file picker comes to mind, though it is resizable without much fuss. But then there are those that cannot be resized and being unable to move the titlebar further up, I am forced to use Alt+F7 to see what's at the bottom.

I suspect that many programs today are designed to work comfortably on higher resolution displays, but not really tested on smaller ones. Understandably, developers only have so much time and 1366x768 is getting long in the tooth. Just wanted to put this out there since nobody seems to be talking about it.

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[–] fatur0000new@lemmy.ml 3 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

If you use Xfce, you can make your display bigger than its maximum resolution by using scale in display settings. Chose "Custom" and set it to 0.5/below. Don't set it to above 1 because it will make your display smaller and don't set it too low because it will make your display blurry. If you encounter an issue when play game, you must revert your setting.

You can do this too with xrandr but i don't know if this will work in desktop environment. You may try it if you want. I never try this with wayland.

Sorry if my english is wrong

Edit: change 0.9 to 0.5.

[–] 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

1366x768? Where are they supposed to fit all that whitespace at such a small resolution?

[–] Ferk@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I don't understand the posh stylistic decisions around padding, rounded borders, etc. How do those things make the UI better exactly?

As someone who used low resolutions for most of my University years (I did my thesis in a tiny ultralaptop), I relied heavily on a custom gtk2 theme I had to write to remove most of that padding that made the UI feel so unnecessary and my screen so cramped.

Gnome now pushing for removing theming completely and relying on just color scheme customization feels totally backwards to me. I don't have an answer for OP sadly... other than just using terminal / tui apps more whenever possible.

[–] fatur0000new@lemmy.ml 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

When 720p display era they can do it. Why today they cann't?

[–] Ferk@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I feel UI trends have gone in the direction of making things worse, not better.

I remember when it was pretty much unanimous that "mplayer" was beautiful in all its square corners glory, while "Windows Live Media Player" was seen as a horrible abomination.

Now it feels like everyone is on board with inefficient UI designs like the latter for some reason.

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 22 points 16 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) (3 children)

Most of my laptops are 1366x768. In fact, in a recent KDE survey, the developers got extremely surprised about how prevalent low resolutions were (it was linked around a few months ago). All developers are out of touch a bit, however, let's not forget that this issue wouldn't exist if Linux users weren't allergic to anonymous data-sending with statistics like these. Yes, no one likes privacy invasion and telemetry, but statistics like these are needed by developers.

BTW, on Gnome you can use the ALT button to move windows around when they don't fit. Still annoying though. Mint has 2 such windows too (their login prefs, and their panel settings pref).

Edit: More info here https://blog.davidedmundson.co.uk/blog/metrics-in-kde-are-they-useful/

[–] fatur0000new@lemmy.ml 4 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This issue doesn't need statistics to be solved. Developers just need to "As low resolution as possible" in mind

Sorry if my english is bad

[–] MyNameIsRichard@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Developers will develop so it is right for the majority of their users and I guess they are aiming at 1080p which is mid-range at the moment. This is why hardware stats are important. If they're anonymous then what's the problem with them?

Your English is fine.

[–] 30p87@feddit.org 3 points 9 hours ago

Loving tiling WMs for eliminating the dynamic size problem alltogether.

[–] schizo@forum.uncomfortable.business 10 points 15 hours ago (5 children)

Honestly, I would have assumed 1080p was an acceptable default assumption.

Is this just a case of older hardware, or are there still laptops that don't have 1080p panels at this point?

A quick review of stuff on BestBuy indicates that $150 laptops have 1080p displays now, and anything more than that does as well, so uh, what devices are still using these?

[–] Doom4535@lemmy.sdf.org 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

My current laptop I bought used and didn't realize that HD wasn't 1080p, but rather 720p... (1080p is apparently FHD), whoops. I'm currently using a Latitude 7290 for reference and it more than meets all my regular needs (other than the screen resolution...). I have been using a tiling window manager and moving to apps that don't waste as much space on my screen to try to help compensate.

Assuming Desktop is 1080p is probably reasonable, but there are a ton of good used business laptops that are still 720p, so it's probably going to stick around for a while (also, why encourage e-waste).

For reference, my laptops specks are:

  1. i7-8650u
  2. 32 GB RAM
  3. 2TB SSD

As long as I stay out of VM's and do my development in lightweight editors and containers, this hardware could technically last me a while (also, I think the 7x90 series Latitudes are some of my favorite laptops).

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 5 points 12 hours ago

You could assume 1080p or higher for desktops, but 1366x768 and 1440x900 are still fairly common on laptops. Not everyone is running brand new hardware. Many people put Linux on their old laptops so they can continue using them. Higher resolutions screens with display scaling are also common on laptops.

[–] kusivittula@sopuli.xyz 9 points 15 hours ago

<1080p screens are still a thing in new laptops. took a quick look at my local electronics store and found some with 1600x900. but most are indeed at least fhd.

[–] monovergent@lemmy.ml 5 points 15 hours ago

Old hardware indeed, but 768 pixels ought to be enough for any window

[–] eugenia@lemmy.ml 3 points 15 hours ago

It's a case of people not buying new computers anymore as much as they used to. They have reached a speed that's acceptable to them, so they don't see the point of upgrading. Same with phones, everyone was buying a new phone every year until about 2017. Then it slowed down because phones matured, there was no point chasing new hardware anymore. So now we have people using old phones, and old laptops. That's why there were so many angry people at Ms for asking them to upgrade in order to install Win11. They didn't want to upgrade, their laptop felt fast enough.

[–] Auster@thebrainbin.org 1 points 16 hours ago

Maybe in some cases, it helps to use Alt F10, or, since I'm using Mint and it may change in other systems, maybe the equivalent for yours?