Bug 232171

Summary: plasma desktop changes positions of widgets after I moved them
Product: [Unmaintained] plasma4 Reporter: Martin Steigerwald <Martin>
Component: containment-desktopAssignee: Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME    
Severity: normal CC: andreas, aseigo, bvitnik, cyberbob1972, fergal.mullally, finex, joekowalski, n.schnelle, navid.zamani, toddrme2178
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Debian testing   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: plasma-desktop insists on re-positioning widgets after I dropped them
sorry, this is the right one, ksnapshot was in window mode
sometimes it even repositions two or more widgets
positions restored after removing temperature monitor widget

Description Martin Steigerwald 2010-03-26 00:36:45 UTC
Version:            (using KDE 4.4.1)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages

Simple task: On my activity "System" I want to have a bubble mon, a processor system monitor, a RAM system monitor and a temperature system monitor widget on the right side of the 1400x1050 screen of my ThinkPad T42.

But whenever I try to position them that way plasma desktop insists on repositioning them at will. For example I tried to move the temperature system monitor - rotated by 90 degrees just like the other system monitors - in the right bottom corner, but plasma desktop insists on positioning partly on top of the memory system monitor.

I find this really annoying. Plasma desktop should just leave the widgets where I dropped them and never ever move them somewhere else.

I will attach a screenshot.
Comment 1 Martin Steigerwald 2010-03-26 00:42:20 UTC
Created attachment 42263 [details]
plasma-desktop insists on re-positioning widgets after I dropped them

See memory and temperature system monitor. I want to place the temperature one below the memory one, but when ever I drop it there, plasma-desktop places it partly on top of the memory monitor when I move the mouse beside the temperature monitor. It initial places it right, but when I leave the widgets it insists on knowing better than me. It doesn't and it gotta leave that widgets where I placed it. Period. Did I say I find this really annoying? No offence meant, just IMHO these little things diminish usability of Plasma a lot IMHO.
Comment 2 Martin Steigerwald 2010-03-26 00:44:45 UTC
Created attachment 42264 [details]
sorry, this is the right one, ksnapshot was in window mode
Comment 3 Martin Steigerwald 2010-03-26 00:58:50 UTC
Created attachment 42265 [details]
sometimes it even repositions two or more widgets

I thought I'd give in and have the temperature monitoring widget horicontally instead. Then I moved the bubble mon, the processor monitor and the memory monitor more to the left while I wanted them to stay at the right border of the screen, cause I want to place a Konsole on the other screen space. And then as I opened Konqueror to add to this report it even also repositioned the temperature monitor itself again. I placed it in the bottom right corner!

It seems to dice the positions.

Please reduce some intelligence from the positioning system or get that intelligence right. I *know* what I am doing!
Comment 4 Martin Steigerwald 2010-03-26 01:01:43 UTC
Created attachment 42266 [details]
positions restored after removing temperature monitor widget

It gets even funnier. Now I removed the temperature monitoring widget. And then Plasma restored the original positions of the other three widgets, the bubble mon, the processor usage monitor and the memory usage monitor. Now Plasma again placed them where I placed them originally. What's going on here?
Comment 5 Bojan Vitnik 2010-04-26 21:16:22 UTC
I can reproduce this problem in Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx Beta1 (using KDE 4.4.1) and RC (using KDE 4.4.2). It does not just affect positioning of widgets. Resizing also does not work. Sometimes it keeps size/position, sometimes it returns to previous size/position. It also affects other widgets that were not moved or resized. It seems that it only happens when a new position of a widget covers the previous position. For example, with large widgets like Folder View, if you move it for a half of its length, it will return to it original position. Everything happens as soon as mouse gets out of a widget and side control "slides back in".

This problem is maybe associated with a feature that returns widgets that were moved outside desktop area back to the desktop (to be completely visible).

The interesting thing is that, when you manually restart plasma-desktop, everything works correctly. Also I could not reproduce this problem on other distros.
Comment 6 Martin Steigerwald 2010-04-26 21:41:23 UTC
Thanks for your findings, Bojan. Hmmm Debian and Ubuntu. Maybe a problem with a setting specific to these two distributions? But then Debian and Kubuntu at least partly appear to use quite different settings. Which other distros did you try?
Comment 7 Bojan Vitnik 2010-04-26 22:47:32 UTC
Ubuntu 10.04 (Kubuntu to be exact) Beta1 and RC, that I tested, were both LiveCDs. I don't have time to install and test them. I also tested Fedora 13 Beta (using KDE 4.4.1), again LiveCD only, and Chakra (Arch) latest LiveCD (using KDE 4.4.2). I could not reproduce the bug in Fedora and Arch.

I also reported the bug on Ubuntu Launchpad but they immediately said that it is probably a problem with KDE itself, not with their packages, and advised me to report the bug on bugs.kde.org instead. You can find the bug report here -> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/kdebase/+bug/569877 . I mentioned your bug report there.

I'm surprised that no one confirmed this bug anywhere but I myself can reproduce it on two different computers. Are people blind, or the bug does not affect them?

I did not try to boot Kubuntu in virtual machine but I will.
Comment 8 Bojan Vitnik 2010-05-15 20:10:53 UTC
Here is a video showing the bug. The test was done in VirtualBox but same happens if I boot LiveCD directly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b3TuEECXyg
Comment 9 Radko Dinev 2010-05-16 15:02:31 UTC
Running Kubuntu 10.04 LTS, KDE 4.4.2.
I have the same problem - it affects both position and size of widgets.

The problem occurs inconsistently - when you resize or move a widget the position and size get restored most often, but sometimes (although rare) they don't.
After a lot of resizing and repositioning I achieved the desired layout of 4 Folder View widgets on my desktop and locked the widgets, however after reboot their size was restored to the default one for the widget and they were randomly positioned (and overlapped).
Comment 10 Nikola Schnelle 2010-07-03 00:10:49 UTC
I can confirm this bug. It is present in Kubuntu Lucid and Kubuntu Maverick alpha 2.
Comment 11 FiNeX 2010-08-16 12:45:28 UTC
*** Bug 242973 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 12 FiNeX 2010-08-16 13:38:00 UTC
*** Bug 243007 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 13 Todd 2010-10-14 04:05:18 UTC
I'm having this problem as well, with folderview particularly.
Comment 14 Bojan Vitnik 2010-10-14 15:10:02 UTC
(In reply to comment #13)
> I'm having this problem as well, with folderview particularly.

What version of KDE SC? Bug seems to be gone in KDE 4.5.1 at least in Kubuntu 10.10.
Comment 15 Todd 2010-10-14 16:53:03 UTC
I'm using 4.5.2 on opensuse.  I don't recall having the problem when I reconfigured my desktop in 4.5.0 or 4.5.1, but I am definitely having in in 4.5.2.
Comment 16 FiNeX 2010-10-14 17:52:46 UTC
I confirm that sometimes it happens on KDE 4.5.2, but it is more difficult to reproduce
Comment 17 Fergal Mullally 2011-02-01 05:42:28 UTC
Recently upgraded to KDE 4.* and just noticed this problem. Running KDE 4.4.5 on Ubuntu 10.04. Resizing icons frequently fails. When it succeeds, resizing a different icon causes the first icon to return to the default size. Moving widgets (e.g folder view) around is often ignored
Comment 18 disabled account 2011-05-28 19:10:56 UTC
*** Bug 236768 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 19 Todd 2011-07-31 06:38:56 UTC
This bug has re-appeared in KDE 4.7.
Comment 20 Navid Zamani 2015-11-01 13:20:59 UTC
This bug exists since I migrated to KDE 4 for the first time, and /still/ exists in all its painfully embarrassing glory. (It is the main* reason I tell people kDE 4 is /still/ in beta and always will be. ;)

Dear KDE developers: Are you interested /at all/ in fixing this bug?
Because I can guarantee I can help you reproduce it.

___
(* The general reason KDE is still an unstable beta, is because literally everything breaks if one actually /uses/ those features that go beyond a Gnome (read: “DERP”) level. [Like separate widgets on the dashboard.] Somebody needs to tell the KDE “devs”, that barely using any features doesn’t qualify as “WORKSFORME”. If one wanted that, one would use Gnome.)