From: Paul F. <pf....@gm...> - 2010-03-05 18:56:08
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This is my first post to this list. My apologies in advance if I do something wrong, don't follow protocol, etc. Please feel free to let me know. My family will have its first reunion this August and I have been appointed/volunteered into doing the family tree for it. Since I know nothing about genealogy programs I did a Google search ("free linux genealogy program" maybe) and then downloaded 3.1.3-1 for Fedora 12. I am learning what to do and how to do it and have some questions, so I thought I would ask here, but if the answer is out there please feel free to point me to it (although I would appreciate a specific pointer and not just "the wiki"). I just wanted to create a new "family" and when the window popped up I was reminded of something I was curious about. It popped up in the upper-left corner of my desktop and I am wondering if there is any way to control its creation-location? (But not specific to any particular window manager.) Can I set some flag, some preference, some environmental variable, some line in a control file (is there such a control file? say in my ~/.gramps tree?), etc., to make such windows appear where I want them to appear? Say in the center of my desktop? Or at some specific X,Y coordinate? I find it bothersome to have to drag every window over to where my eyes feel comfortable viewing it. I doubt it matters but just for the record I am running gramps on a Fedora 12 partition on another (faster) machine, which NFS-mounts my home directory, and then I ssh to that F12, so that my DISPLAY envariable points back to where I came from (which has things I want, like automatic archiving of my home directory). Also for the record I don't know Python but I suppose I could learn, if I really have to. If there is no (easy) way to do it, perhaps a developer could reply as to whether it might be possible to put it into 3.2? Thanks. |
From: Frederico M. <fs...@gm...> - 2010-03-05 19:14:59
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Hi, 2010/3/5 Paul Franklin <pf....@gm...>: > Can I set some flag, some preference, some environmental > variable, some line in a control file (is there such a control > file? say in my ~/.gramps tree?), etc., to make such windows > appear where I want them to appear? > > Say in the center of my desktop? Or at some specific X,Y > coordinate? I find it bothersome to have to drag every > window over to where my eyes feel comfortable viewing it. In general this sort of actions are the responsability of the Window Manager, and not of individual programs (as GRAMPS). It's a bad idea to try let individual applications change this sort of things. Are you using "stock" Fedora 12 (with GNOME and the metacity window manager), or are you using something different (like Compiz with the 3D effects, etc)? Most window managers arrange new windows at the centre, or at least offer that option. If you're using GNOME+metacity you are likely our of luck though, since it doesn't seem to offer any configuration options regarding placement. FWIW though, when I used metacity I don't recall any weird window placement issues. Regards, Frederico |
From: Martin E. <mar...@gm...> - 2010-03-05 19:23:43
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As you may know, window placement is generally controlled by your window manager (e.g., Gnome metacity, etc.). By default, it tries to put up windows in a pleasant, non-overlapping way, but it is often not just what you'd want. This can be overridden by an application, but it would be hard to get it right for every possible user preference, screen size, etc. Sometimes, apps will let you specify the location and/or size of the first window, but thereafter they do what they want. (New windows come up at center screen? Lower right? Spaced not to overlap other windows? ...) Gramps (on Ubuntu Karmic) seems to prefer to pop up windows on top of whatever window they came from. I would agree that might not be the best choice, especially if you have a big screen. On the other hand, you need some way to indicate that the windows toward the bottom are inactive when Gramps is waiting for you to finish with the topmost window. It's the modal dialog problem. Cheers, Martin On Fri, Mar 5, 2010 at 1:56 PM, Paul Franklin <pf....@gm...> wrote: > This is my first post to this list. My apologies in advance > if I do something wrong, don't follow protocol, etc. Please > feel free to let me know. > > My family will have its first reunion this August and I have > been appointed/volunteered into doing the family tree for it. > Since I know nothing about genealogy programs I did a > Google search ("free linux genealogy program" maybe) > and then downloaded 3.1.3-1 for Fedora 12. > > I am learning what to do and how to do it and have some > questions, so I thought I would ask here, but if the answer > is out there please feel free to point me to it (although I > would appreciate a specific pointer and not just "the wiki"). > > I just wanted to create a new "family" and when the window > popped up I was reminded of something I was curious about. > It popped up in the upper-left corner of my desktop and I am > wondering if there is any way to control its creation-location? > (But not specific to any particular window manager.) > > Can I set some flag, some preference, some environmental > variable, some line in a control file (is there such a control > file? say in my ~/.gramps tree?), etc., to make such windows > appear where I want them to appear? > > Say in the center of my desktop? Or at some specific X,Y > coordinate? I find it bothersome to have to drag every > window over to where my eyes feel comfortable viewing it. > > I doubt it matters but just for the record I am running gramps > on a Fedora 12 partition on another (faster) machine, which > NFS-mounts my home directory, and then I ssh to that F12, > so that my DISPLAY envariable points back to where I came > from (which has things I want, like automatic archiving of my > home directory). Also for the record I don't know Python but > I suppose I could learn, if I really have to. > > If there is no (easy) way to do it, perhaps a developer could > reply as to whether it might be possible to put it into 3.2? > > Thanks. > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval > Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs > proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. > See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev > _______________________________________________ > Gramps-users mailing list > Gra...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gramps-users > -- Dr. Martin S. Ewing, AA6E Member IEEE, URSI, AAS, ARRL Branford, Connecticut |
From: Paul F. <pf....@gm...> - 2010-03-06 00:29:37
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To answer your questions, yes I'm using vanilla Fedora 12, with the GNOME "gdm" as default display manager. But I am using (the classic) "twm" as my window manager (for historical reasons). The reason I was suspecting it might be possible (even though I don't know that for a fact) is that whenever I put in a new person and forget to specify the sex a little window pops up to remind me -- and it is in the exact center of the screen (where I'd love to be able to direct all other windows to be created, since the philosophy (I'm guessing) of "gramps" seems to be to pop up a window whenever it has a question (for instance when it insists on asking you if a child is a "birth" child of both parents -- whereas I would have thought it should be done in the new-child window)). So I was guessing that if "gramps" could direct the window manager to put that window in the screen's center it might be (somehow) possible to (have me) direct it to put the others there too. Thanks. |
From: Frederico M. <fs...@gm...> - 2010-03-06 00:48:39
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Hi, 2010/3/6 Paul Franklin <pf....@gm...>: > To answer your questions, yes I'm using vanilla Fedora 12, > with the GNOME "gdm" as default display manager. But I > am using (the classic) "twm" as my window manager (for > historical reasons). TWM! Well, that brings me memories :) IIRC the default placement policy of twm was actually letting the user decide by showing a wireframe window first... > The reason I was suspecting it might be possible (even > though I don't know that for a fact) is that whenever I put > in a new person and forget to specify the sex a little > window pops up to remind me -- and it is in the exact > center of the screen (where I'd love to be able to direct > all other windows to be created, since the philosophy > (I'm guessing) of "gramps" seems to be to pop up a > window whenever it has a question (for instance when > it insists on asking you if a child is a "birth" child of > both parents -- whereas I would have thought it should > be done in the new-child window)). Some windows have different "natures", which might be why their behaviour is different. Transiente windows, popup windows, etc, all give different hints to the WM, which then decides how to treat them. The window you are referring to is a transient window (just checked it with xprop), which is "tied" to a parent window (or at least it provides that information to the WM), which is why the WM decides to put in in the middle of the parent window. > So I was guessing > that if "gramps" could direct the window manager to put > that window in the screen's center it might be (somehow) > possible to (have me) direct it to put the others there too. It is possible I think, but it is something that must be done in twm, and not in GRAMPS. There is probably a setting to put in .twmrc to change the window placement policy. Regards, Frederico |