Cet article est aussi disponible en français. This article contains quite a few technical terms, which I will explain these in the following paragraphs, those that are already familiar with these terms may skip to the next section. A basic understanding of linux and it’s desktop environments is assumed. Server side decorations (SSD) is the term for when when the application’s titlebar is drawn by the system and client side decorations (CSD) is the term for when the applications draws it’s own titlebar. KDE prefers the former, while GNOME prefers the latter. KDE and most other desktop environments supports both, while GNOME only supports CSD.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/57302675

an article explaining why GNOME should support SSD, but also arguing against the reasons often given for why they shouldn’t

If someone could repost this to r/GNOME I would appreciate it, since I don’t have a reddit account.

  • lucas@startrek.websiteEnglish
    396·
    2 days ago

    Since when did CSD become accepted, let alone encouraged? Titlebars should only ever be drawn by the system. This trend of individual applications drawing their own titlebars is a disaster that results in fragmentation and inconsistent behaviour. The absolute disaster that is the titlebars is one of the main reasons I cannot bring myself to use GNOME, recently.

    • termaxima@slrpnk.net
      1·
      23 hours ago

      I don’t want a giant bar that only contains 3 icons and the name of the app. Why would you want that ?

      I have SSDs off on all my machines.

      • lucas@startrek.websiteEnglish
        1·
        4 hours ago

        Precisely. SSD puts the decorations in the hands of your window manager, which allows you to customise what information and controls are available in the title bar (or if you even want to display one at all), so you can use the space much more efficiently. With CSD, you’re down to the whims and opinions of the application, and their space-wasting choices (and whether they even choose to respect your theming).

    • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
      36·
      2 days ago

      It creates a clear heirarchy of information too. The system owns the title bar, so any operations there are system operations.

      At one point browsers did something similar for security awareness-- real permission prompts, etc. were set a few pixels over into the main UI to establist that they were “real” and not part of the page content.

      Most of the time, we’re not so starved for pixels that we have tp be stealing from the title bar.

      Hell, we lived thtough 640x480 desktops without even the cheat of hamburger menus.

      • Björn@swg-empire.de
        13·
        2 days ago

        Most of the time, we’re not so starved for pixels that we have tp be stealing from the title bar.

        Plus, when we actually are starved for space SSD allow the system to make the necessary adjustments.

        • HakFoo@lemmy.sdf.org
          1·
          1 day ago

          One thing that dawned on me… maybe CSD and some of the “new” window management paradigms (tiling, card style, etc.) are symbiotic. If you aren’t using the title bar for manipulating the window on a regular basis, you feel free to ignore or outright scramble it.