Subject: Re: bug#5308: 23.1.91; Geometry quirk on OpenSuSE 11.2

From: Steve Revilak <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 20:44:42 -0500

Jan,

Thanks for responding.  I'm sorry that you didn't get much useful
information from my initial report.  Please let me try again, and I
will make an effort to be clearer this time.

First, I'd like to provide you with some system information.

Operating System:

   (1:0)srevilak:~$ cat /etc/SuSE-release 
   openSUSE 11.2 (i586)
   VERSION = 11.2
   (0:0)srevilak:~$ uname -a
   Linux srevilak 2.6.31.5-0.1-desktop #1 SMP PREEMPT 2009-10-26 15:49:03 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux

Window Manager:

   (0:0)srevilak:~$ kde4-config --version
   Qt: 4.5.3
   KDE: 4.3.1 (KDE 4.3.1) "release 6"
   kde4-config: 1.0

Contents of .Xresources (a single line, containing a comment):

   (0:0)srevilak:~$ cat .Xresources
   ! .Xresources

Contents of .emacs (a single line, containing a comment):

   (0:0)srevilak:~$ cat .emacs
   ; .emacs

Finally, to be sure that ~/.Xresources agrees with our current
environment.

   (0:0)srevilak:~$ xrdb .Xresources

First, I will start emacs with the command line

   /usr/local/emacs-23.1.91/bin/emacs --no-init-file --no-site-file -geometry 86x44-0+0 

figure-1.png shows a snapshot of my screen after starting emacs.  As
you can see, emacs occupies most of the vertical space on the screen.

Next, I will quit emacs, then run the following command line

   /usr/local/emacs-23.1.91/bin/emacs --no-init-file --no-site-file -geometry 86x45-0+0

Notice that I have increased the height from 44 to 45, which is just a
little too large to fit on the screen; the rest of the command line is
unchanged.  The result of this appears in figure-2.png.

Observe that figure-1.png and figure-2.png are quite different.

As you noted before, this could be the Window Manager's doing.  For my
third (and final) snapshot, I would like to provide evidence which
suggests that it is not the window manager.

     /usr/bin/emacs --no-init-file --no-site-file -geometry 86x45-0+0

Above, /usr/bin/emacs is emacs 23.1.1, as packaged with OpenSUSE 11.2
(you'll see this from emacs' splash screen).  The result of running
this command appears in figure-3.png.  As you can see, figure-3.png
resembles figure-1.png much more than figure-2.png.

The difference between figure-2.png and figure-3.png is the core of my
issue.  Specifically,

  * When Emacs-23.1.1 is confronted with a geometry that is too large
    for the height of the screen, then emacs-23.1.1 respects the
    geometry as best as it can.  In figure-3.png, we see that
    Emacs-23.1.1 took up as much of the vertical screen space as was
    possible.

  * When Emacs-23.1.91 is confronted with a geometry that is too large
    for the height of the screen, then emacs-23.1.91 does not try to
    respect the geometry as best as it can.  As you can see from
    figure-2.png, emacs-23.1.91 opted for a much smaller height.  (In
    figure-2.png, you can also see a very different appearance in the
    splash screen itself.)

In summary, I believe that the behavior shown in figure-3.png (produced by
emacs-23.1.1) is more correct than the behavior shown in figure-2.png
(produced by emacs-23.1.91).

Please let me know if you'd like me to provide any additional details.

Steve Revilak