Bug 209962 - please make the "Maximize Panel" option automatically adapt to varying screen sizes
Summary: please make the "Maximize Panel" option automatically adapt to varying screen...
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: plasma4
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: Mandriva RPMs Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Plasma Bugs List
URL:
Keywords:
: 181229 189883 275892 283901 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2009-10-09 10:09 UTC by Daniel Mader
Modified: 2018-06-08 20:11 UTC (History)
25 users (show)

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:


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Description Daniel Mader 2009-10-09 10:09:09 UTC
Version:            (using KDE 4.3.1)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Mandriva RPMs

Currently, there is an option to "maximize" the panel which works OK. Yet, in an environment where users with roaming profiles log on to different workstations with different screensizes and layouts, the panel size is not properly determined:

For example, if a user who wants a maximized panes logs on to a 1024px wide screen, and the next time on a workstation with 1600px, the panel is downsized to 1024px from last login. Therefore, the user has to adapt it each time.

It would be great to have the "Maximize Panel" option always check the screen size upon login in order to make sure the panel is maximized under all conditions.
Comment 1 Kai Uwe Broulik 2010-08-18 14:48:47 UTC
Never noticed? Maybe fixed in KDE 4.4/4.5?
Comment 2 Alessandro Crismani 2010-08-19 15:48:23 UTC
Still present for me. Using KDE 4.5 on Arch Linux.

When I start KDE the used screen is my laptop LCD, which maximizes the panel at 1366 px, then if I switch to an external LCD the panel does not adapt to the new resolution and I have to manually maximize it.

Cheers,
Alessandro
Comment 3 nicholas_hogg 2010-09-27 12:17:27 UTC
Also still present for me, and I am also using latest stable KDE 4.5 on Arch.  The problem is exactly as Alessandro describes.  
For me, I boot my laptop with an external LCD monitor connected.  I only want to use the external monitor, and the resolution is too low when logging into KDE.  My laptop has Intel GM45 chipset, and I use the following script to make the resolution available and switch over to the external monitor:

xrandr |grep VGA1 | grep " connected "
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
   xrandr --output LVDS1 --off
   xrandr --newmode "1440x900_60.00"  106.47  1440 1520 1672 1904  900 901 904 932  -HSync +Vsync
   xrandr --addmode VGA1 1440x900_60.00
   xrandr --output VGA1 --primary --mode 1440x900_60.00
fi

Regards,
Nick
Comment 4 Christian Schuerer 2010-10-26 22:08:37 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 5 Kai Uwe Broulik 2010-11-22 21:50:14 UTC
Can‘t be too difficult to implement, can it?
It is really annoying since I have an external kubuntu which is attached to various computers and then often not only is the panel too narrow but often it stays black until I maximize it.
And the panel option strip is always the full screen width and then it gives a really bad transition between the full width strip and the smaller panel since it has now shadow and stuff.
Still in 4.6
Comment 6 Kai Uwe Broulik 2010-11-22 21:54:31 UTC
The panel does adapt to variing screen sizes but only when they are applied while KDE is running. If the screen size is changed and KDE started then (e.g. KDE started on a different machine) it does not check for resolution changes.
Comment 7 Kai Uwe Broulik 2010-12-15 23:39:41 UTC
http://kde.org/announcements/announce-4.6-beta2.png Even on official screens you see this uglyness. This is just embarrasing. (And I don‘t believe that the developer did this on purpose and even if he had, it still looks ugly with that activity bar over the full size).
Comment 8 a.pronobis 2011-02-02 15:04:21 UTC
The panel does not adapt even when the screen size changes occur while kde is running. It *sometimes* happens that the size is updated, but most of the time it does not. Is there a way to trigger the update?
Comment 9 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-02-06 12:12:21 UTC
Yesterday I had a surprise for my mom, I bought a new 24" monitor and gave her the old 24", run her kubuntu and set auto maximize since I didn't want to leave her with a buggy panel.
But she didn't want the screen, it's too big for her, so I just replaced it with her old one. And today she was arguing where her calendar, clock and volume controle had gone. Right: they were offscreen. And now tell her to right click the panel, (i don't evrn lock wifädgets on her machine anymore since it makes evertäything more complicated) go to the panel settings submenu, choosr panel settings, in the resulting strip go to the other settings menu and choose maximize panel. She eventually figured it out but c'mon this is just bad, don't you think? So is this now a won't fix or does nobody of the plasma developers ever use their computer at differrnt screens?
Comment 10 Daniel Mader 2011-02-06 12:49:29 UTC
Yes please, please fix this issue. Even Windows XP can handle that. Just make the panel stretch to the maximum extent, with an additional option if you want.
Comment 11 mz 2011-02-14 16:13:04 UTC
I can confirm this issue on Ubuntu 10.10 with KDE SC4.6. Running on a notebook with an (optional) display the following situations are given:

1) Laptop only with no external monitor connected: Panel is maximized
1.1) change to lower resolution wit "KDE Configure Display" > panel is still maximized
1.2) change back to original (higher) resolution > panel stays at reduced size

2) Connect external monitor and move over to a xinerama setup via the following batch script:
xrandr --output LVDS1 --mode 1366x768
xrandr --output HDMI1 --mode 1680x1050 --left-of LVDS1

Result: Panel moves over to the primary monitor (wanted) yet stays at the reduced size of. The width is roughly about the size it had on the internal laptop panel. 

In each case and for each of these situations this means unlocking the widgets, maximizing the panel, locking the widgets. Cumbersome and annoying. If you need further information let me know.
Comment 12 timshel 2011-02-14 22:57:38 UTC
I can confirm this issue too but only with KDE 4.6.
With KDE 4.4.4 in openSUSE 11.3 the panel would maximize from 1280 to 1920 and vise versa. I am not sure if it is an openSUSE fix or was really working in vanilla KDE 4.4.4.
Comment 13 Michal Witkowski 2011-03-01 23:47:10 UTC
Same here, using KDE SC 4.6 vanilla on Arch Linux. Changing the screen from my LVDS (800height) to the DFP (1200 height) doesn't maximize my _vertical_ panel. Changing from DFP to LVDS causes the panel to be "cut" - only a partion of it is visible.

This is really embarrassing for a desktop environment.
Comment 14 Lim Yuen Hoe 2011-03-02 08:24:27 UTC
I'm spending some of my spare time looking at this. I'm having trouble reproducing some of the reported symptoms. I can reproduce the "large screen panel gets partially obscured on small screen" problem as follows:

- start with external screen at 1440x900
- Add an empty horizontal panel, add some widgets, click the "maximize" button
- change screen to 1280x800
- Observe that a portion to the right of the panel gets cut off due to smaller resolution

But I can't reproduce the vice versa case. If I do

- start with external screen at 1280x800
- Add an empty horizontal panel, add some widgets, click the "maximize" button
- change screen to 1440x900

The panel properly maximizes to fill up the horizontal space. I have tried this on both 4.6.0 and on master. Can someone confirm that this is the current behavior? Or can reporters of the "small screen panel does not enlarge when screen size is increased" case confirm steps to reproduce the problem on 4.6.0 or on master?
Comment 15 mz 2011-03-02 09:43:59 UTC
Lim, I can still confirm this behaviour in KDE 4.6. See my report above. The problem seems to be the second monitor being added or removed.

On a single monitor I can change resolutions all day long (up or down) via the kde settings, xrandr or whatever.The panel stays maximized..

Plug in a second monitor (and redirect the panel to this monitor) and you are in for trouble as described multiple times above. The panel does not adapt to the size of the newly connected external screen.

Thanks for looking into it.
Comment 16 Daniel Mader 2011-03-02 09:53:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #15)
> Thanks for looking into it.

Oh yes, very much so :) This is a long standing issue which has been ignored for the past years! I very much appreciate that this finanlly changes! Thanks a lot!
Comment 17 timshel 2011-03-02 10:22:20 UTC
I can confirm that automatic maximizing of the panel seems to work now most of the time but the minimizing doesn't.
Comment 18 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-03-02 13:18:26 UTC
So, also I think the option is not applied when the computer starts with another screen? So I replaced my mom‘s 1200x1024 screen with a 1920x1200 and then I started and the panel was still at the old width, then I maximized it to give her a nice look and she didn‘t want the screen and I just replaced it. When she came home she was asking where here calendar (clock widget) was and it was out of screen since the panel was still at 1920 width…
I also noticed, when I attached this screen to my notebook and moved the panel over, sometimes it did adapt to the new size and sometimes it didn‘t.
Isn‘t there a flag like “panel maximized” for the panel? It doesn‘t seem so since the button also has no checked sate but is just a button to maximize the panel and that‘s it.
Comment 19 Lim Yuen Hoe 2011-03-05 10:20:08 UTC
mz, I've tried switching monitors too:

- maximized panel on 1360x768 laptop screen
- attached external monitor, move screen from laptop screen to external monitor, which is at 1400x900
- panel properly maximizes

However, I noticed that there is an occassional visual glitch that obscures part of the panel with a patch of black when it moves to a larger resolution. Mouse-over-ing the black region shows that the panel and its widgets are underneath and had in fact maximized to fit the screen. Is this what you are observing? I'm focusing on making sure the panel itself properly resizes now, so that visual glitch would be a different problem.
Comment 20 apfel 2011-03-05 10:38:27 UTC
I can reproduce the issue here on my laptop

1. maximized panels (on top and bottom) on 1680x1050. No external screen.
2. switch to external screen with nvidia-settings on 1920x1200. Screen on laptop is off

result : width of both pannels are still 1680px.

And I have to maximize both pannels manually every day. I use the external screen at work and the built in screen at home.

With KDE 4.4 it worked fine. It doesnt work since 4.5.0
Comment 21 mz 2011-03-05 13:47:16 UTC
Lim,

I do get the obscured black area next to the panel occasionally. For me - as you also see it - this seems to be a graphics bug not related to the panel resize problem. So, no, this I do not mean.

In my case changing over to the external monitor using the xrandr commands from above the panel stays at a width of 1376 px and needs to be maximized via -> unlock -> panel -> maximize or so. Each and every time I use the panel.
Comment 22 Lim Yuen Hoe 2011-03-06 11:17:46 UTC
Git commit 181c58c354f15fb1bda91ea6582f2baf3975c7f2 by Lim Yuen Hoe.
Committed on 05/03/2011 at 09:35.
Pushed by yuenlim into branch 'KDE/4.6'.

Make panel properly resize to fit in screen when reducing screen resolution.

CCBUG: 209962

M  +32   -2    plasma/desktop/shell/panelview.cpp     

http://commits.kde.org/kde-workspace/181c58c354f15fb1bda91ea6582f2baf3975c7f2
Comment 23 Paulo Fidalgo 2011-04-11 10:07:52 UTC
In KDE 4.6.1 I still have this odd behaviour. I will wait to get 4.6.2 in my distro, to check if it's fixed.

Thanks a lot for your work!
Comment 24 Martin Rehn 2011-04-16 17:26:11 UTC
I am also still seeing this bug in 4.6.2.

1) When I log in on smaller screen, the desktop is aware of the proper screen size -- except for the panel, which extends off the screen to the right. I have to select "maximize panel" to have it fit on the screen.

2) When I log in on a larger screen, the panel only covers part of the screen.

I have deleted the appropriate settings files as suggested elsewhere several times; this does not help.

One way to reproduce this bug without actually changing the screen resolution is to log in using NX, with different window sizes.

Since this bug is unfixed since years, please consider making the "maximize" choice a setting (checkbox) rather than an action, if that would make things simpler. That is probably what 95% of the users who have this problem want anyway.
Comment 25 IanB 2011-06-15 19:52:07 UTC
I see this problem a lot on 4.6.3 when using VNC or vmplayer where the display geometry may often vary.
Comment 26 IanB 2011-06-15 19:53:21 UTC
I see this problem a lot on 4.6.3 when using VNC or vmplayer where the display geometry may often vary.
Comment 27 a.pronobis 2011-06-15 22:38:34 UTC
Still there in 4.6.4.
Comment 28 Alexander Potashev 2011-06-26 07:50:46 UTC
*** Bug 181229 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 29 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-06-29 16:24:46 UTC
Still in current trunk.
I Never experienced this on my notebook even when having used other resolutions but now I just started it and the panel was 1024 pixels in width instead of 1366
Comment 30 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-06-29 17:02:52 UTC
I think a nice way of approaching this:
When changing panel extent save the values in percentage relative to the current screen resolution and apply them on startup again so if you have a 1024x768 resolution and maximize the panel, plasma would know „from 0% to 100%“ and when you start on another machine it knows the screen is 1920x1080 and will scale the panel to the 100% which will then be the entire 1920 width.
This will also somehow improve panels that are not spanning across the entire width, they are resized relatively to the screen resolution, so your “dock” is always 50% of the screen width.
Comment 31 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-07-17 21:37:20 UTC
It seems there’s hope :)
Be sure that Panel is resized when needed (XRandR events)
Comment 32 Kai Uwe Broulik 2011-07-17 21:37:53 UTC
Whoops, sorry for the noise: I meant to copy this thing in: https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/101968/
Comment 33 apfel 2011-08-17 08:33:35 UTC
This bug is fixed in 4.7, it works fine for me. Thanks to afiestas.
Comment 34 Gregor Tätzner 2011-12-02 21:26:47 UTC
*** Bug 275892 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 35 Gregor Tätzner 2011-12-02 21:28:00 UTC
*** Bug 189883 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 36 Gregor Tätzner 2011-12-02 21:35:58 UTC
*** Bug 283901 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 37 Achim Bohnet 2011-12-02 21:40:43 UTC
In 4.7.2 the panel maximises here correctly when switching screen with krandrtray.

What's left is that the 'maximise panel' button should be a  'maximise' option next
to left, right, center options.   As it's now it's IMHO inconsistant and a bit confusing.

Thx,
Achim
Comment 38 Nate Graham 2018-06-08 20:11:43 UTC
Hello!

This feature request was filed for KDE Plasma 4, which reached end-of-support status in August 2015. KDE Plasma 5's desktop shell has been almost completely rewritten for better performance and usability, so it is likely that this feature request is already implemented in Plasma 5, or is no longer applicable.

Accordingly, we hope you understand why we must close this feature request. If the requested feature is still desired but not implemented in KDE Plasma 5.12 or later, please feel free to open a new ticket in the "plasmashell" product after reading https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved/Bug_Reporting

If you would like to get involved in KDE's bug triaging effort so that future mass bug closes like this are less likely, please read https://community.kde.org/Get_Involved#Bug_Triaging

Thanks for your understanding!

Nate Graham