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I prefer my window decorations (minimize, maximize, close, etc.) to be...

Displaying poll results.
on the top right
  65% 95 votes
on the top left
  9% 14 votes
top center
0% 1 votes
somewhere else, as explained below
  3% 5 votes
I like my windows without decorations, TYVM
  12% 18 votes
my credos does not permit window environments
  1% 2 votes
I let my spouse choose the drapes
  6% 9 votes
144 total votes.
[ Voting Booth | Other Polls | Back Home ]
  • Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
  • Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
  • This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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(1)
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @08:54PM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 02 2020, @08:54PM (#1060097)

    I'm used to the top-right at this point. Did have a preference for top-left for a while though, and to this day I'll still double-click the window menu icon on Windows/older X window managers to close windows.
    I have a machine that runs Window Maker as its WM, so the decorations are on both sides -- minimize on top-left (which I barely use), close on top-right.

    • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday October 06 2020, @06:19PM (4 children)

      by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 06 2020, @06:19PM (#1061343) Journal

      All other viewpoints signal defective thinking and the need for re-education.

      You may disagree with me, but you would be wrong.

      --
      People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:31AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:31AM (#1061473)

        All other locations indicate a rabid desire to copy Apple.

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 07 2020, @09:29PM (2 children)

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 07 2020, @09:29PM (#1061858) Journal

          Starting Oct 7: The top left is now the only place where the window decorations should be. There can be no other way.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:34PM (1 child)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday October 14 2020, @03:34PM (#1064488) Journal

            It is an abomination against nature to place the window controls anywhere except the top right.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2020, @02:12AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2020, @02:12AM (#1067768)

              Top right is fine for minimize/maximize/pin. Mouse wheel for shade. Close in the top left, and no stupid window icon button because I can just right-click on the title bar to get the same menu.

  • (Score: 2) by srobert on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:55AM (2 children)

    by srobert (4803) on Saturday October 03 2020, @12:55AM (#1060198)

    No decor, buttons or even title bar to put them on.
    I'd have a really hard time adjusting to anything other than my own XMonad config.
    It's like using Vim keybindings.

    • (Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday October 15 2020, @11:28PM

      by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday October 15 2020, @11:28PM (#1065219) Homepage
      DWM here, same general principle.

      There's no concept of minimisation here, so I don't have it and don't miss it. There are several other ways of not having a window visible.

      Maximisation is just going into monacle mode, or simply viewing it "in its own workspace" (which is not how DWM works at all, but if that's the paradigm you're used to, that's how you'll see it behaving, but it's way more powerful than that).

      I so rarely need an exogenous "close" to kill a program/window that I don't even know what the DWM keybinding to kill the program with (or subsequently selected) focus is! If a program doesn't know how to kill itself (terminating the shell (or other process it was invoked specifically to spawn) spawned in a terminal, ^X-^C in an *emacs, ^Q in lots of GUI stuff, etc. etc. etc.) then it's a useless program, and don't use it, or fix it. There is one, I just don't remember it, as I last used it 2 years ago.
      --
      Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    • (Score: 2) by bart9h on Monday October 19 2020, @03:54AM

      by bart9h (767) on Monday October 19 2020, @03:54AM (#1066323)

      i3 [i3wm.org] here, same general principle.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @06:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @06:46AM (#1060264)

    I have the application window leather controls in an Apple-like dot style with a dark theme, but on the right side - in Cinnamon on Manjaro.

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday October 03 2020, @11:28AM (7 children)

    by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 03 2020, @11:28AM (#1060297) Journal

    For me, the perfect window manager is Window Maker [windowmaker.org]. It's fairly simple and doesn't clutter the screen up with junk. It's also really easy to configure. I've been using it for nearly 20 years. Before that I used to use AfterStep until it got baroque. Back in the olden days (late 1990s) there seemed to be hundreds of window managers in development. I used to follow announcements on freshmeat.net every day and try out all the latest toys. There was a particularly fancy one called Enlightenment. It used to crash.

    I use RedHat-based distros at work (CentOS and occasionally RedHawk) and they keep trying to be like MS Windows, which I find irritating.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by coolgopher on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:46AM (1 child)

      by coolgopher (1157) on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:46AM (#1060472)

      Another Widow Maker user here, who also remembers trying out Enlightenment back in the day and going "ooh aah" over its fanciness, before uninstalling again due to lack of performance and stability.

      For a while I used the Gnome that came with Ubuntu at work, but then they went mad with Unity(?) and I've been back at wmaker since. While I do miss the odd bit of easy system config (monitor setup, global font selection), its automatic window placement more than makes up for it in my view. Keybinds for maximise vertically, horizontally or both make it a joy to swing umpteen xterms around.

      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:17PM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:17PM (#1060699) Homepage Journal

        Heh, I use wmctrl fired by conky every second or two for placement of windows I'm always going to want in the same place, with a hotkey to move/size any non-auto window to my standard working placement. It's not exactly efficient but it's good enough.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:13PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:13PM (#1060696) Homepage Journal

      Enlightenment's still around and still under development. They're up to 0.24.2 at the moment. I don't play with it nowadays unless it's been long enough that I've forgotten what a pain in the ass it is though. Openbox FTW.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Monday October 05 2020, @09:32PM (3 children)

      by istartedi (123) on Monday October 05 2020, @09:32PM (#1061106) Journal

      I never used Enlightenment myself, but I fondly remember a co-worker who did back in the 90s. It had translucency and other forms of eye candy years before others. It made it look like we were living in the future. It was cool to see somebody else doing it; but I just wanted to GSD.

      --
      Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
      • (Score: 2) by turgid on Tuesday October 06 2020, @10:25AM (2 children)

        by turgid (4318) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday October 06 2020, @10:25AM (#1061229) Journal

        I used to think transparent terminals were cool back then but I went back to plain old xterm. The transparent terminals were a bit slower, some were buggy and I soon found the background distracting when trying to get things done. I still use xterm. It's small, fast and does everything I need. With a bit of shell scripting, it's an important building block in my environment. Together, bash, xterm and ash are incredibly powerful tools.

        • (Score: 5, Funny) by DECbot on Tuesday October 06 2020, @01:12PM

          by DECbot (832) on Tuesday October 06 2020, @01:12PM (#1061249) Journal

          I have kept the terminal transparency--at about 80% on a windowing environment capable of doing composting. The result is being able to type over the windows behind the terminal with little distraction, but when needed I can see through the terminal to reference documentation, like the switches for the command I'm stringing together (or blatant copy/pasta of commands from the internet to be executed as root--yes I know what I'm doing, being stupid).

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @06:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @06:34PM (#1062183)

          Try alacritty. I never used xterm because rxvt/urxvt was always better, but after 15 years I have finally moved.

          And I used to use fvwm (still install it because why not) but I am stuck on KDE that now likes to call itself plasma. Honestly, I am very happy with it.

          As far as enlightenment is concerned, at some point of time close to 2008-2010, Rasterman was contacted by Samsung to write backend for mobile devices, so he dropped all the bling-bling and focused on fixing base libraries (efl), in top of which his minions created the most easily portable and most uninspired desktop experience and basically kicked e17 out the door, to be used by no known user. Seriously, the stuff you could do in e17 back in 2008 was all gone by 2012. What a let down. Now its proponents write shitty software on top of efl like terminology that doesn't work properly and will never because its developers have no goal beside using efl.

  • (Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:27PM (11 children)

    by looorg (578) on Saturday October 03 2020, @02:27PM (#1060344)

    I don't really pay it to much attention anymore. The MS Windows standard is the standard these days and I think I just got used to it. Grab any border to resize, no need to go down to the bottom right corner anymore. All manipulations in the top right corner.

    I'm not even sure I remember all the other standards anymore. I did like the Amiga standard for some time but there are things in it now that are just weird, it didn't have min/max window but the top right icons was to change the window depth as in bringing things into focus/front and putting things behind. A useful thing back then as you didn't have the same screen-size we have today. I don't really miss having to go to the bottom right corner to resize the window. Top left was to close the window.

    • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Saturday October 03 2020, @04:00PM (10 children)

      by richtopia (3160) on Saturday October 03 2020, @04:00PM (#1060372) Homepage Journal

      I agree. I'm no fan of MS products but I am frustrated when hotkeys are missing when I spin up a new Linux distro or DE. Close & minimize in the corner, dragging and resizing windows with the borders, alt+tab, and what typically is missing is super hotkeys, like moving a window to half of the screen. Super+r or Super+e is also missing in most default Linux setups, and I really miss that fast access to a file browser or run window.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:13PM (6 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:13PM (#1060653) Journal
        "I really miss that fast access to a file browser or run window."

        It's called a terminal.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 3, Touché) by Tork on Thursday October 08 2020, @07:07PM (5 children)

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 08 2020, @07:07PM (#1062194)
          A terminal is not a file browser.
          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @09:42PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 08 2020, @09:42PM (#1062246)

            ls and cd still work just fine for me.

            • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 08 2020, @09:50PM (2 children)

              by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 08 2020, @09:50PM (#1062248)
              Yeah? Is there an equivalent of image thumbnails?
              --
              🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
              • (Score: 4, Informative) by DECbot on Thursday October 08 2020, @10:35PM (1 child)

                by DECbot (832) on Thursday October 08 2020, @10:35PM (#1062269) Journal

                $ lsix

                Here's the how to [ostechnix.com].

                --
                cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
                • (Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday October 08 2020, @10:36PM

                  by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 08 2020, @10:36PM (#1062270)
                  Ah I love learning something new, thank you!
                  --
                  🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
            • (Score: 3, Informative) by FatPhil on Thursday October 15 2020, @11:36PM

              by FatPhil (863) <pc-soylentNO@SPAMasdf.fi> on Thursday October 15 2020, @11:36PM (#1065222) Homepage
              You don't even need ls to show you files if your shell offers you instantanious filtering by filename with tab-completion.
              --
              Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:06PM (2 children)

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:06PM (#1060693) Homepage Journal

        Alt-F2 takes care of your "run" needs in most Linux setups. If you didn't already have half a dozen tabs open in a terminal emulator.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:34AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:34AM (#1061476)

          Alt-F2 working implies the operation of one's Linux system within the crutches of a desktop environment.

          Those of use who eschew desktop environments as the crutches they are don't have Alt-F2 wired up to do anything, unless we damn well want it to do something. Then we modify our Fvwm2 config so it works, exactly the way we want at the time.

  • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Saturday October 03 2020, @07:19PM

    by gtomorrow (2230) on Saturday October 03 2020, @07:19PM (#1060404)

    Wherever is opposite of the scrollbar.

    And I too used to love WindowMaker.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @11:56PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 03 2020, @11:56PM (#1060450)

    I like to use my screen space, not waste it.

  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:12PM

    by Arik (4543) on Sunday October 04 2020, @01:12PM (#1060652) Journal
    Close at top right, maximise/restore at top left. Double click title bar to shade, right click titlebar for other actions.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 04 2020, @02:58PM (1 child)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 04 2020, @02:58PM (#1060671) Journal

    I came from a DOS world, to Windows. I learned to use a mouse about the same time I installed Windows 2.something. There really wasn't much graphics on desktops before that. I'll note that Microsoft followed the apparent conventions of most graphical applications that I had used already. So, decorations and such were Microsoft centric. When I moved on to Linux, I found the Microsoft ways to be pretty much default, and I never had reason to change things up. To this day, I expect a title bar, and a menu bar, laid out along the lines of Microsoft Windows. If there is a 'better' way to do things, I just don't care very much.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:09PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday October 04 2020, @05:09PM (#1060694) Homepage Journal

      There isn't a better way, just different ways. I stick with top-right in Linux because it means I don't have to be confused when I'm on my gaming rig. I do really miss Alt-LMBdrag for window moving if it's not available though.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
  • (Score: 3, Touché) by Zinnia Zirconium on Monday October 05 2020, @12:27AM

    by Zinnia Zirconium (11163) on Monday October 05 2020, @12:27AM (#1060821) Homepage Journal

    Android doesn't have any of that stuff.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by MostCynical on Monday October 05 2020, @02:26AM (9 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Monday October 05 2020, @02:26AM (#1060856) Journal

    I just wish they'd be in the same place across versions.. not move every time a new ui designer has a hot flash.

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 2) by Zinnia Zirconium on Monday October 05 2020, @03:03AM

      by Zinnia Zirconium (11163) on Monday October 05 2020, @03:03AM (#1060868) Homepage Journal

      Well then you want Microsoft Windows don't you? The minimize maximize close buttons were moved to the top right in Microsoft Encarta 95 and have been there ever since.

      See Microsoft Encarta 95 under Windows 3.11 for Workgroups [youtu.be] in 1994 how windows inside Encarta looked like they would the next year in Windows 95.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday October 06 2020, @02:12PM (4 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday October 06 2020, @02:12PM (#1061271)

      UI designers constantly change things because it's impossible to build a career on "Hey, let's keep things the way they are, they work just fine!"

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DECbot on Tuesday October 06 2020, @07:33PM

        by DECbot (832) on Tuesday October 06 2020, @07:33PM (#1061373) Journal

        Only the lazy ones toss everything out and start over with each version. The truly dedicated designers work tirelessly to find the perfect shade of cauliflower blue on modern monitors necessary to pierce through your eyelids and present you with the most pertinent information on your latest BSOD. It it must be timed just right--long enough to ruin any motivation following the interrupted productive work session, yet short enough to prevent you from recording any useful text that might be on the screen. With all the performance improvements that hardware is capable of, maintaining a balance is difficult.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:25AM

        by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:25AM (#1061458) Homepage Journal

        Nah, you just gotta sell it, same as anything else. I generally go with something along the lines of "Your users are going to want to torture you, murder you, and train dogs to rape your rotting corpses if you change things around and make it harder for them to do their jobs." Maybe a bit more professionally phrased but that's the general sentiment.

        --
        My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by redneckmother on Wednesday October 07 2020, @11:50AM (1 child)

        by redneckmother (3597) on Wednesday October 07 2020, @11:50AM (#1061576)

        Mmpff. Reminds me of automotive engineers (sorry, incomplete term - FUCKING engineers). Can't justify existence or continued employment without fucking something up, like making it impossible to change an oil filter without buying a special tool. Also, an easy to access air filter seems to present an opportunity for some whiz-bangy, impossible to use enclosure. Gotta change the locations and designs each year. Never know where they've hidden the fuses... usually in multiple locations, some of which require gymnastics to reach.

        Get off my lawn.

        --
        Mas cerveza por favor.
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Thursday October 15 2020, @12:55AM

          by Arik (4543) on Thursday October 15 2020, @12:55AM (#1064704) Journal
          This is even worse though.

          All those changes in automative UI were at least arguably justified. Yes, they caused problems - but they measurably decreased costs as well. Decreasing costs is something managers can understand.

          UI designers don't decrease costs. Redesigns, even really crappy ones, cost money.

          I think in many cases they get their foot in the door by submitting extremely low bids for maintenance, then once they have the contract they try to tell the client that there's a bad case of bit rot and it will be cheaper to reimplement.

          Of course their reimplemenation will be buggy as hell and feature incomplete on top of having a UI that qualifies as a crime against humanity; but by the time management notices there won't be any path back.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:38AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 07 2020, @01:38AM (#1061477)

      not move every time a new ui designer has a hot flash.

      Then don't run those crutches known as "desktop environments". My Fvwm2 config has remained stable for, oh, a good twenty years or so now. The number of buttons, their position, the presence of a title bar, the ability to resize or push down/pull up from any edge, etc., has all been the same through numerous different Slackware installs.

      No ui designer having a hot flash has ever caused anything to move around on my layout.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by MostCynical on Wednesday October 07 2020, @03:39AM (1 child)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday October 07 2020, @03:39AM (#1061503) Journal

        alas, most of us have to use whatever 'tools' the employer of the moment supplies, so mostly, that means Windows, Office, Adobe, etc etc etc..

        at home, no such issues - debian is debian and I can choose and manage almost anything.

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday October 20 2020, @04:04PM

          by Freeman (732) on Tuesday October 20 2020, @04:04PM (#1066849) Journal

          Our IT department was implementing a No User Installs policy, before the Coronavirus hit. So, they began taking Admin rights away from all users. Which lead to a problem for me, due to the fact that one of my ancient Library systems software requires Admin access to function properly. Yes, it looks like it was coded in the 90s and has been getting the sledge hammer, round peg, square hole treatment since. It'd be a serious pain to switch though, so we're still using that. I had a talk with our IT people and they conceded. Still, that just seems like they're making more work for themselves, when what they need is less work for themselves. We're a small place, but they've got tons of computers to manage, with few IT personnel to manage them. For all I know, they've reversed the policy by now. That just sounded crazy to me. Increase their own work load, decrease user satisfaction, and break things while you're at it. Sounds like a Microsoft operation to me.

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
  • (Score: 2) by ze on Monday October 05 2020, @07:55PM (4 children)

    by ze (8197) on Monday October 05 2020, @07:55PM (#1061063)

    I find that nothing much wants to use the super key, ya know the one with a window on it?, so I changed my window manager's alt-<whatever> keyboard and mouse bindings to super-<whatever>, which almost never conflict with any application bindings (unlike a lot of alt-<stuff>).
    Holding super and left/middle/right clicking does stuff like move, resize, and bring up a menu with the rest of the usual controls and like a dozen more that my wm supports and wouldn't be practical to put in a row of buttons anyway. I like to control stacking, so scroll sends windows to the back or front of the stack. Even better, I can do all these things from anywhere in the window, not just some designated pixels to hunt for... the menu pops up wherever you right click, resize just goes with the border or corner you middle click closest to, and the whole window is a drag anchor just by holding the window button down while left clicking it. Not just saving real estate, it's way easier, and windowing systems that make me pixel hunt are just obnoxious to me now.

    • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday October 10 2020, @07:04PM (2 children)

      by RamiK (1813) on Saturday October 10 2020, @07:04PM (#1063023)

      That's the most common i3 keybinding. I believe the reason it's not the default is to accommodate laptop and (Apple) tenkeyless users that may lack a Start key and arrows.

      Regardless, I use it as well and as such have no window decorations.

      --
      compiling...
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 16 2020, @04:37PM

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday October 16 2020, @04:37PM (#1065463)

      Holding super and left/middle/right clicking does stuff like move, resize

      Probably my favorite feature of XFCE is Alt+LClick+drag to move, Alt+RClick+drag to resize windows. The former lets you move windows so their titlebar is off the screen and still have them be usable to save space; the latter solves the Linux DE problem that the window borders always seem to be 1 pixel wide and impossible to grab.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by SomeGuy on Monday October 05 2020, @09:46PM

    by SomeGuy (5632) on Monday October 05 2020, @09:46PM (#1061107)

    On the early Macintosh Finder, close was a single click box on the upper left of each finder/document window, but that did not usually close applications since they still sort of ran one at a time.

    In Windows this evolved in to a "system box" that was double clicked to close a window, or single clicked to bring up a menu with other windowing commands. Alt-space also brings up the menu which enables window sizing and moving with the keyboard.

    Windows 95 added a single-click close button in the upper right, changed the appearance of the system box to the icon of the current program, and extended the functionality by enabling right-clicking (useful on an Explorer window, same options as right-clicking on its folder in the parent window)

    Unfortunately, I have seen many applications that piss all over the system box. Either they badly change the menu that comes up, or they try to eliminate it all together. (Because moderrrrn).

    I sometimes still double click the system box to close an application or window, and it bugs me when it does not work as expected. Alt-space can actually be quite useful when something messes up the mouse cursor.

    I was under the impression most idiots just "swiped" crap away on their toy grease screens these days.

  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Tuesday October 06 2020, @07:07PM (4 children)

    by Subsentient (1111) on Tuesday October 06 2020, @07:07PM (#1061363) Homepage Journal

    I like close on the top left, and minimize, maximize, and shade on the top right.
    The reason I like close on the other side is to minimize (ba-dum-tss) the risk I close something accidentally while trying to minimize or maximize it.

    I often "compute while tired", and as a result my mouse movements aren't always that precise. So, better to keep the close button out of the accident zone. It also looks neater.
    My current config. [imgur.com]

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @08:26PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 06 2020, @08:26PM (#1061386)

      With a sig like that - I'm not looking at your config!

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:34AM (2 children)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Wednesday October 07 2020, @12:34AM (#1061460) Homepage Journal

      Shade as a button? I just mousewheel up or down on the title bar to shade/unshade and save on misclicks. Can even cycle through all the shaded n stacked windows if you keep wheeling up. Really though, it's slower and harder to read than just using alt-tab.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Wednesday October 07 2020, @04:42PM

        by DECbot (832) on Wednesday October 07 2020, @04:42PM (#1061701) Journal

        I too keep shade as a button. I've also set double clicking the title bar to toggle shade instead of maximizing. I rarely work with maximized windows and I often switch application hopping as I go from reference to reference. It is something I wish I had on my work computer--but they're glued to Microsoft. I'm a little surprised I'm not required to use IE6 for our internal tools.

        --
        cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
      • (Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday October 08 2020, @12:59AM

        by Arik (4543) on Thursday October 08 2020, @12:59AM (#1061931) Journal
        I do that sometimes. Just as long as the close button is at the top right where it's supposed to be, and everything else is to the top left, the details aren't so important.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 2) by DrkShadow on Wednesday October 07 2020, @06:53PM

    by DrkShadow (1404) on Wednesday October 07 2020, @06:53PM (#1061782)

    "I like my window decorations..."

    to stop changing locations for every damn software release.

  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday October 08 2020, @05:41PM (3 children)

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Thursday October 08 2020, @05:41PM (#1062166)

    In my experience across the decades, going with the most mainstream window manager you can stand is usually the course of least trouble: incompatibilities in applications, weird problems to debug, etc.

    People love to hate the various Window Manager changes put out by Ubuntu, but I found the default WM to be the first to properly support high resolution displays (higher than 1080p), and overall the least trouble to setup and maintain.

    On the other hand: minimalist managers like XFCE are tempting in certain applications - but switching to them always ends up being even more of a time suck than just customizing the default.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 16 2020, @04:32PM (2 children)

      by tangomargarine (667) on Friday October 16 2020, @04:32PM (#1065459)

      On the other hand: minimalist managers like XFCE are tempting in certain applications - but switching to them always ends up being even more of a time suck than just customizing the default.

      Or you just install a distro like Mint XFCE that comes with it by default already...

      Having to go into two separate places to get your taskbars and window borders to match is a bit annoying but otherwise I love XFCE. It's simple and clean, I set my preferences and then it stays the hell out of my way.

      --
      "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
      • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 18 2020, @04:34PM (1 child)

        by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday October 18 2020, @04:34PM (#1066152)

        When we were Cent based, I was using XFCE as a window manager for our very basic needs, and it was fine - as you say: stays out of the way, for the most part. But... switching back to Ubuntu, it was more trouble than it was worth to switch over to XFCE - even if switching off all the special key functions of Gnome is a PITA...

        --
        🌻🌻 [google.com]
        • (Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday October 19 2020, @04:34AM

          by DECbot (832) on Monday October 19 2020, @04:34AM (#1066331) Journal

          That's why I was running Xubuntu up until systemd came along. All the best of Ubuntu, XFCE, and GTK without the pain of Gnome. Now it's Devuan which defaults to XFCE.

          --
          cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
  • (Score: 2) by ilsa on Thursday October 08 2020, @06:56PM (2 children)

    by ilsa (6082) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 08 2020, @06:56PM (#1062188)

    Did you grow up with Windows, or a Mac?

    Cause that's literally all that is. Anyone who uses one platform exclusively will be annoyed if the buttons move cause it disrupts muscle memory. Anyone who has to bounce between multiple environments regularly is never going to really care.

    Unless we're talking Gnome, which takes the @$^&ing buttons away entirely, in which case the entire dev team, the project managers and their cow can all be tarred, feathered, and thrown into a raging house fire.

    • (Score: 2) by gtomorrow on Monday October 12 2020, @06:33PM

      by gtomorrow (2230) on Monday October 12 2020, @06:33PM (#1063648)

      I'll bring the Zippo.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Arik on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:54AM

      by Arik (4543) on Tuesday October 13 2020, @12:54AM (#1063798) Journal
      "Did you grow up with Windows, or a Mac?"

      Nope.

      By the time I saw either of those systems, I'd been using computers for at least a decade. They're both awful, btw.
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Friday October 09 2020, @01:13PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday October 09 2020, @01:13PM (#1062459)

    My primary window decoration for manipulating my view of apps has been the browser tab since the turn of the century.

    Not much left anymore that I actually use, that's a natively locally installed app.

    Thanks to Apache Guacamole I even have a pretty decent SSH terminal and rdesktop in every modern browser although there are a bazzilion commercial equivalents of "run it there, display it elsewhere".

    I have to run games locally, and some SDR number crunching stuff locally, although even SDR stuff is moving toward the model of plug hardware into pi run openwebrx or whatever its called this year and connect via browser.

    I find it hard to run stuff locally due to configuration sync issues. My local copy of sublime text does not have the stuff I'm used on on my universally accessible virtual image that has sublime text installed on it, ditto .bashrc and emacs files and vim configs and all that. Its just a pain to have multiple versions with multiple configs on multiple machines vs just rdesktop into a huge vmware image or ssh into a AWS image and call it good.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 11 2020, @05:08AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 11 2020, @05:08AM (#1063135)

    I created a theme for Sawfish, and put close in one corner, the other buttons in the opposite, near the title text.

    Not that I use buttons much, just if I have the hand in the mouse already, most of the times I use they keyboard to close, maximixe (one or both axis), minimize, shade, raise or lower, move around or bump against other windows, etc.

  • (Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Friday October 16 2020, @04:29PM (1 child)

    by tangomargarine (667) on Friday October 16 2020, @04:29PM (#1065455)

    my credos does not permit window environments

    "Credos" and "does" violate subject-verb agreement

    --
    "Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2020, @01:47PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 20 2020, @01:47PM (#1066790)

    This doesn't compute. How do I minimize or maximize a window? I only know how to open, close, and lock and unlock a window. and hopefully not break it.

    As far as decorations you can always decorate them with those Gnomes or maybe with Christmas ornaments. Or, since Halloween is coming up, I can use a pumpkin.

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