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asdasd
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 12:24 pm

Quick feedback.

#1 Post by asdasd »

I'm quite used to Ubuntu. I don't quite like their recent change to Gnome, so I'm considering hopping to another DE, and another distro while I'm at it. Out of many candidates, MX looks really polished! Most of the things work out of the box, just as I would expect them to, and most of the rest is just a matter of changing some habits and/or default settings. Nonetheless, there are some quirks that are very noticable even in the first hour of trying it out. In no particular order:
- while trying it out on VirtualBox, I resized the display size. MX correctly redrew everything to the new resolution, but the additional space was unusable. Trying to drag windows there doesn't work, snapping using keyboard shortcuts or dragging to "edge" works as though it was still at older resolution - so the edge (invisible) appeared in the middle of the screen, so to say. [Added later: actually, I managed to freeze the system while restoring the original size. No response from keyboard or mouse, had to reset the VM.]
- on the packaging: good to see apt, it's something familiar to me. However, one of the first packages I usually install - Chromium browser - appears under different name: chromium, instead of usual chromium-browser. Why? I thought that would be inherited from Debian and like. Having mismatching names could easily mean problems, while googling for the name of a missing package.
- resizing windows basically sucks. Area for grabbing window edge is one pixel wide, which is terrible and requires a couple of tries to grab it. Apparently it's an old standing bug in xfce, with most workarounds I found on the web boiling down to editting theme file to increase border size, which in turn makes it look ugly. Ubuntu on the other hand, works out of the box - there are no edges (or 1px, can't tell), but there is invisible ca. 15px of space to resize it. Workarounds like "use shortcut" don't satisfy me, at times I prefer to use just mouse.
- a bit annoying shortcut thing: I'm used to Ubuntu's Ctrl+Super+Right to snap window to right half of the screen. I set that up, but it somewhat collided with the Super as open Whisker. That's also a shortcut that I would like to keep - quick search is indispensable. In Ubuntu, the search meanu doesn't open until I release Super without pressing anything else. In MX, it actually depends on the key press order: if I do Ctrl, Super, Right, it works right (snap), but if I do Super, Ctrl, Right, the Whisker opens and cancels the shortcut I want. I usually press both Ctrl and Super at almost the same time, so it looks randomly failing to me.
- workspace menu in the description says: "Configure layout, names and margins". The latter two are there, but option to change layout to vertical is nowhere to be found.
That's all I could find within an hour of installing - even though it may look like a bit, it's rather short list compared to other distros literally falling apart when poked the wrong way. So, overall, good job, but some issues still remain ;]

User avatar
PondLife
Posts: 68
Joined: Wed May 09, 2018 12:24 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#2 Post by PondLife »

For resizing windows use alt + RH mouse click, with the cursor in the window you want to resize.

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dolphin_oracle
Developer
Posts: 19831
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:17 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#3 Post by dolphin_oracle »

Thanks and welcome!

I'm not sure what's up with your virtualbox. The guest additions are work ok for me here, could be a conflict between the guest additions we have installed and the virtualbox you are running on I guess.

The grab bar depends on theme. I think we set the default themes with wider grab bars than the truly pitiful Xfce default Greybird theme, but if those aren't wide enough, try the Greybird-MX17 themes. Those are modified with wider grips as well.

The workspaces entry is upstream from debian's Xfce, thanks for pointing them out. I never noticed the dependency between description and function :happy:

Chromium is hosted in the debian repos. We don't have our own. https://packages.debian.org/stretch/chromium . This would be just one of many differences between Ubuntu's packaging of apps and Debian's.
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

asdasd
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 12:24 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#4 Post by asdasd »

Thanks for quick - and friendly - reply!

VBox - yeah, it is fiddly at times. Assuming everything works on metal, that's not a big issue.

Theme - hmm. At the moment of writing, I used Arc-Dark or Arc-Darker, as that's what I'm used to. Trying out the Greybirds, it appears Greybiard-accessibility has 3px, Greybird-compact - 2px, and Greybird-mx17 - 1px wide borders. That's still too little to my taste, even the 3px. I didn't try out the alt+RMB tip, as it creates context menu on my host system outside VM, I guess I'll try it later and maybe live with it. Still, I know I'm not the only person frustrated by this pixel hunting, so maybe consider finding a way to make it behave in a sane way.

Packages - OK, I wasn't aware of these discrepancies. If that's debian notation, that shouldn't be too hard to google ;]

User avatar
Stevo
Developer
Posts: 12745
Joined: Fri Dec 15, 2006 8:07 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#5 Post by Stevo »

For some reason, XFCE calls the window borders and titlebars the "Window Manager". We have a couple additional customized ones in there with fatter borders: Arc-hpdi and Arc-xhdpi. If those make the titlebar too big, we could also generate one with the standard titlebar but wider borders...arc-fatborders? We could also try packaging themes from xfce-look if you find one that works better. I have an old one called "2nd Look" that has fat borders, but it's gtk2 only, gtk3 apps revert to Obsidian2 for the borders.

You're also the first one that's reported those particular Virtual Box errors...what version is running on your host?

I think it would be well worth it to add the note to our FAQs that certain package names may be different for those accustomed to the Ubuntu ecosystem. But you might never have spotted that if you just installed Chromium using the MX Package Installer, though of course the command line is a faster method.

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fehlix
Developer
Posts: 10275
Joined: Wed Apr 11, 2018 5:09 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#6 Post by fehlix »

@asdasd : Whisker-Menu key and grab'n'move/resize window with VirtualBox:
In order to get the default Whisker-Menu-key (Super-L-key)
and default "window-modification-key" (Alt-key) passed
to my VirtualBox-guest I do within my MX17 virtualbox-host:
the following change of keyboard mapping

Whisker-Menu-key (default is Super-L-key):
W-Menu -> Settings -> Keyboard -> Application Shortcuts
-> xfce4-shorcut-whisker-menu
My change: remap "Super L" -> "Menu"
The "Menu"-key is on my keyboard left key from Right-Ctrl-key.

Window-modification-key "WMK" (default is ALT-key):
W-Menu -> Settings -> Window Manager Tweaks
-> Accessibility
-> Key used to grab and move windows:
My change default: Alt -> Super

With this remapping on the host grabbing and window-move works
now within both host and guest:

-> hold WMK and press left Mouse to move window
-> hold WMK and press righ-mouse-key to reszise window
Certainly you could remapp to your liking to make
eg. half-snapping left/right working in both host/and guest.
:snail:
Gigabyte Z77M-D3H, Intel Xeon E3-1240 V2 (Quad core), 32GB RAM,
GeForce GTX 770, Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB, Seagate Barracuda 4TB

User avatar
rich
Posts: 180
Joined: Sat Mar 31, 2018 6:39 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#7 Post by rich »

asdasd wrote: - a bit annoying shortcut thing: I'm used to Ubuntu's Ctrl+Super+Right to snap window to right half of the screen. I set that up, but it somewhat collided with the Super as open Whisker. That's also a shortcut that I would like to keep - quick search is indispensable. In Ubuntu, the search meanu doesn't open until I release Super without pressing anything else. In MX, it actually depends on the key press order: if I do Ctrl, Super, Right, it works right (snap), but if I do Super, Ctrl, Right, the Whisker opens and cancels the shortcut I want. I usually press both Ctrl and Super at almost the same time, so it looks randomly failing to me.
Hello, you can use xcape to make it so you can launch the menu with super key and still use super key shortcuts elsewhere. I recently posted about this here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=45123
asdasd wrote: - workspace menu in the description says: "Configure layout, names and margins". The latter two are there, but option to change layout to vertical is nowhere to be found.
I agree this is a little out of the way, you can right click the workspace panel applet>properties>number of rows.

asdasd
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 12:24 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#8 Post by asdasd »

My VirtualBox's About window says it is version 5.1.34_Ubuntu r121010. You also mentioned something about Guest Additions - as far as I know, they must be installed, for example through CD being inserted to the guest (at least that's what I have been doing always). In the case of this particular MX VM, I haven't done it, so unless it happened without my knowledge, there were no Guest Additions at all.

As for the themes- Arc-Darker-xhdpi looks okay in terms of grab area width - if I measured correctly, 6px. It has much too big title bar though. Also, the border is pretty ugly. I thought it would be impossible to change, but apparently the Greybird set, despite having up to 3px grab, there is 2px of border in the same shade as the window, and just 1px of actual contrasting border - that's what would probably look best. Another issue with Arc-Darker-xhdpi are the corners - they have a square cut out of the window corners, looking weird.

I looked through a couple of pages of top xfce-look themes and next to the only reasonable is axiomd (part of axiom pack). There's also XubuntuStudio, but it doesn't allow switching title bar button layout (and I'm using X on the left side). I didn't check every single of the others, so I probably missed some good ones, but most of ca. 30 themes I bothered to install basing on the screenshots either have the same border issue, or don't look too nice to my eye. Still, I think the best-looking option would be fixed version of Arc.

@fehlix, thanks for the tips. I changed the WMK temporarily, and the right click resizing works, indeed. It's still a change in muscle memory, so might get a while to get used to. Changing Whisker to respond to Menu button is very clever - I never used this key anyway, and its name corresponds nicely to the action it'll perform.

@rich, nice find, so the workspaces are actually stackable vertically :) I'll try the xcape too, though the Menu key advice is nice too.
Last edited by asdasd on Sat May 12, 2018 10:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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dolphin_oracle
Developer
Posts: 19831
Joined: Sun Dec 16, 2007 1:17 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#9 Post by dolphin_oracle »

asdasd wrote:My VirtualBox's About window says it is version 5.1.34_Ubuntu r121010. You also mentioned something about Guest Additions - as far as I know, they must be installed, for example through CD being inserted to the guest (at least that's what I have been doing always). In the case of this particular MX VM, I haven't done it, so unless it happened without my knowledge, there were no Guest Additions at all.
the guest additions should be preinstalled on our isos, although I think they are a later version than your VB.
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

asdasd
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri May 11, 2018 12:24 pm

Re: Quick feedback.

#10 Post by asdasd »

OK, I ran [VBoxClient -V] on the VM and it said the version is 5.2.6_Debianr120293.

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