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.
1366x768? Where are they supposed to fit all that whitespace at such a small resolution?
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.
I use Xfce with Bspwm as a window manager. A plugin writes the window title in the status bar. Window decoration is just a rectangular outline. Its hard to get a more space efficient gui.
When 720p display era they can do it. Why today they cann’t?
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.
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/
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
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.
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.
Fair enough although i still oppose it. We need a better way. My suggestion is developers should develop with “Think about 720p” or “Also think about 720p” principle.
Your English is fine
I am happy hear it.
"Linux runs fine on old hardware Windows doesn’t support anymore/is too slow for.
Low resolution displays are prelavent.
Surprised pikachu face.
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?
first off, you’re not alone out there because standard 1080p screens are often ran at 150% which is equal if not worse to your use case.
gnome is downright abhorrent about their gigantic, space wasting UI elements. moving to plasma was like gaining 30% display area. like, the insanely large title bar in terminal, with huge buttons in it. who clicks on stuff in a terminal?! and does it so often it warrants those things present as default?
I think you should try a tiling or hybrid window manager on laptop. Personally not a fan of them, but that’s one place they fit perfectly.
