Enhancements to PiP mode

[kdwk]

The Picture-in-Picture mode offered by Clapper could use the following enhancements to be even more useful:

1. When entering PiP mode, automatically shrink to a predefined size and place the shrunken window in a corner of the desktop
2. When entering PiP mode, automatically set 'always on top' and 'always on visible workspace' to true
3. When in PiP mode, lock the height and width ratio of the window to that of the video so the video always take up the entirety of the window
4. When hovering cursor over PiP window, show some sort of overlay buttons to play/ pause video and skip 5 seconds forward/ backward
5. When exiting PiP mode, automatically enlarge window to previous size
6. When exiting PiP mode, automatically set 'always on top' and 'always on visible workspace' to previous values (may not be false)

I believe these improvements would users to watch a video alongside whatever they are doing more easily and comfortably.

[Rafostar]

1, 5

Why do we want a window that suddenly changes size here? Seems annoying to me, and would break the neat controls hiding animation.

2, 6

This one is a limitation of Wayland. It was working with older GNOME Shell version by talking to Mutter over DBus, but GNOME devs disabled this functionality, so we work around it with an extension that does just that: https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/4691/pip-on-top/

3

There is already a separate issue open for an ability to restrict window to video aspect ration (no matter if its PiP or not).

4

You can toggle playback with right click button and skip by configured amount of time with Left/Right keys (and use all other keyboard shortcuts) when PiP window has focus. There was a separate OSD in the early UI development, but it created too many variables thus problems/bugs, so it was simplified to what it is today.

[gargullia]

@Rafostar In native builds from https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/clapper and https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/gnome-shell-extension-pip-on-top-git on the latest GNOME 42, the mode does not work PiP mode.

What logs can I send you to help?

[Rafostar]

@gargullia I do not maintain Arch packages (especially extension). Might be extension packaging issue. Make sure you enabled said extension after installing. And please do not use someone else feature request to start your own issue discussion.