[openbox] aps not honoring rc.xml position statements, Vol 59, Issue 4

[plmalternate plmalternate]

On 1/12/14, openbox-request at icculus.org <openbox-request at icculus.org> wrote:
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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. most aps ignore rc.xml (plmalternate plmalternate)
>    2. Re: most aps ignore rc.xml (Jim Rees)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 03:36:10 -0500
> From: plmalternate plmalternate <plmalternate at gmail.com>
> To: openbox at icculus.org
> Subject: [openbox] most aps ignore rc.xml
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAB2o_TGBA=ie9caq7ej_mhTZfJm33UieE=Wask6VT74tn3hwRA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
> Most of my aps ignore my ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml specifications for
> window size and placement, despite "<position force="yes">". The only
> ap I'm pretty sure is honoring them is Mirage, a picture viewer.
> Thunar, firefox, gedit, k4dirstat, and galculator certainly don't.
> I've gone so far as to write a script to launch thunar and then beat
> it in to shape with wmctrl.  I've even thought about
> recompiling some of the aps and trying to see if I can figure out how
> to write the opening size and position in directly. I've never done
> that and I'm not sure how much work it would be.
>
> I'm running Ubuntu Saucy 13.10, 32 bit, made from an installation cd
> made from the mini.iso, which gives you a console with bash, apt-get,
> and not much more. I added x, lightdm and it's gtk greeter, openbox,
> thunar, lxterminal, conky (for a clock), firefox, and this and that.
> So, it's a plain openbox environment, no desktop, no panels.  After
> logging in, all I see is conky showing the time. I right click for a
> menu and proceed from there.
>
> So, am I doing something wrong in the rc.xml, or maybe somewhere else?
> Or have I just run into the border of the present state of the art
> beyond which things don't yet work quite the way we'd like? Any
> suggestions?
>
> my rc.xml is here:
> http://pastebin.com/0cWbsz2P
>
> The applications section starts
> shortly after a row of commented out asterisks. So searching for
> "*****" should take you right to that part.
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sun, 12 Jan 2014 11:31:48 -0500
> From: Jim Rees <rees at umich.edu>
> To: openbox mailing list <openbox at icculus.org>
> Subject: Re: [openbox] most aps ignore rc.xml
> Message-ID: <20140112163148.GA19288 at umich.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> plmalternate plmalternate wrote:
>
>   Most of my aps ignore my ~/.config/openbox/rc.xml specifications for
>   window size and placement, despite "<position force="yes">". The only
>   ap I'm pretty sure is honoring them is Mirage, a picture viewer.
>
> This works for me. Two things look odd to me. One is your wildcard. Maybe
> openbox stops searching for app stanzas when it finds the first match? The
> other is that you are only giving the app name, which I think should work,
> but I always give the class too.
>
> Here's what I've got for firefox:
>
>     <application name="Navigator" class="Firefox">
>       <position force="yes">
> 	<x>8</x>
> 	<y>6</y>
>       </position>
>     </application>
>
>
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> ------------------------------
>
> End of openbox Digest, Vol 59, Issue 4
> **************************************
>
Thank you, sir. You taught me one thing right off the bat. From now on
I'll always use xprop and never make reasonable assumptions about
application's properties. Who'd have thought firefox was "named"
"Navigarot". Now that I know it, I can of course see why. Anyway, I
revised my rc.xml and copied the new version here:
http://pastebin.com/AAWUhPBE
I put your stanza at the top, added width and height, changed the
width and height in the wildcard stanzas because Firefox sets a
minimum I hadn't suspected until I used xprop to confirm the name
"Navigator". I set these notably low, but above Firefox's minimum,  so
that if I get Firefox to honor either of these stanzas, the change in
size will be dramatic enough there will be no mistaking it. Once I get
it working AT ALL I'll change things around so I can determine whether
Firefox honors the first, the last, or the most specific stanza. ATM
it's not honoring any of them.

In the process of trying to figure this out I think I've discovered a
bug, which I intend to report tonight or tomorrow unless someone tells
me not to. It might be relevant.  The position Firefox DOES open at is
ALMOST the same position I closed it at previously, but shifted down
about 5 - 10 pixels, approximately the width of my fat window borders.
This doesn't happen if I close Firefox in a window adjusted smaller
that I usually use with the lower boundary well away from the screen
edge but, so far as I can tell, only when I close it positioned as I
normally do with the bottom border visible but just barely, sitting
right on the bottom of the screen. I don't mean to drag in another
topic, but I thought it might be related.

I'm new to software mailing lists so if I'm violating any standard
customs, please let me know. Should I go ahead and report both of
these things as bugs, citing each report in the other in case they are
linked, or should it stay in the mailing list a bit longer first?