[virt-tools-list] [virt-manager][PATCH 0/4] Allow hiding window decorations and menu bar

[Cole Robinson]

On 01/08/2019 06:16 PM, Povilas Kanapickas wrote:
> On 08/01/2019 01:15, Cole Robinson wrote:
>> On 01/01/2019 07:28 PM, Povilas Kanapickas wrote:
>>> <...>
>>>
>>
>> Thanks for the patches. It's an interesting idea but the use case seems
>> very niche to have explicit support in virt-manager IMO. Even the idea
>> of hiding window decorations seems quite obscure, not even
>> vncviewer/tigervnc has it AFAICT.
>>
>> Also in my testing it doesn't look to be implemented for gtk on wayland
>> which is kinda the way forward, so we end up with a UI element that is a
>> no-op depending on the desktop config. Maybe that's fixable but I don't
>> know offhand
>>
>> I like the idea of splitting out the overlay logic to its own class
>> though, helps readability, so I pushed patch #1
>>
> 
> Hey Cole,
> 
> Thanks for the review.
> 
> Would you reconsider if I fixed Wayland support and any problems with
> any other kind of supported desktop environment and OS combination? I
> agree that if it can't work on Wayland, there's no point in including
> the feature.
>

Fixing wayland would help a bit but it's really more that I find that 
case symptomatic of the maintenance issues feature like this. The 
promise to help with maintenance is nice but in truth I can't depend on 
that, people show up and disappear in open source all the time. I've 
made the mistake many of times of committing a feature or knob I find 
questionable, the submitter disappears, a year or two later I remove the 
feature, and no one complains.

> I think that it's really useful feature if one's using VM's for any kind
> of productive work involving many VMs. The addition of the extra screen
> estate is really noticeable on a 1920x1080 screens that I use. The
> alternative of using a separate application to connect to a VM console
> reduces usability of virt-manager itself a lot.
> 

Can you provide more details about the VM window setup you use? Are you 
wanting just more vertical real estate for a few number or VMs, or 
trying to perfectly align a grid of VMs and the window decorations get 
in the way?

There might be workarounds. gtk headbar size can be reduced with some 
global css tweaks. You can probably even write a script to arrange VM 
windows in a specific setup and hide headerbars but menu bars are still 
visible, since hiding the decorations is an X11 operation. Some google hits:

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/103356/remove-title-bar-of-another-program
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=192422

- Cole