Subject: Re: Shrinking frames as of past month

From: Jan Djärv <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:55:19 +0100

Francesc Rocher skrev:
> Sam Steingold wrote:
> 
>> |> Basically, GTK frames seem to shrink by about one character length every
>> |> time I do certain things such hitting viewing mail on Gnus, hitting the
>> |> key combination "M-x", or displaying an image by hitting RET on it in
>> |> dired.
>> |
>> | Does this always involves an image, or does it happen when you view
>> | ordinary text mail in Gnus also?
>>
>>
>> I get it on entering dired (no images involved)
> 
> Yes, me too, but only on the initial frame. This effect disapears on
> subsequent frames.
> 

It seems it is a bug in Gtk+, http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=68668
(http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=137822 explains it a bit better).

Basically because the menu bar is too large for the frame, Gtk+ sets a base
width that isn't a multiple of the width increment.  This makes the window
manager shrink the text area (by 2 pixels in my case) so that framw width -
base width is a multiple of the width increment.  Then when leaving dired, we
get a correct base width again.  But the 2 pixels aren't put back, rather the
window manager shrinks even more to get the frame to be a multiple of the
width increment.

So for me I get (my width inc is 6 pixels)

enter dired => shrink 2 pixels,
leave dired => shrink 4 pixels,
enter dired => shrink 2 pixels,
...
and so on.

There is talk about a workaround in the gnome-terminal sources, I'll check it out.

If the menu bar is disabled, or the size of the frame is large enough to show
the whole dired menubar, shrinking does not occur.

	Jan D.