The reference point of a window should include the window decorations but it does not.

[LevitatingBusinessMan]

Welcome

• [X] Yes, I'm using the latest major release or the current development version. These are the only supported versions.
• [x] Yes, I've searched similar issues and discussions on GitHub and didn't find any.

Current Behavior

When moving a window to 0,0 I get this:

Expected Behavior

Reproduction Instructions

Assuming that you are not using a dual monitor setup (0,0 actually being the topleft) this will create a window with gtk and move it to 0,0

#include <gtk/gtk.h>

int main(int argc, char** argv) {
  gtk_init(&argc, &argv);
  GtkWidget* window = gtk_window_new (GTK_WINDOW_TOPLEVEL);
  gtk_window_set_type_hint (GTK_WINDOW (window), GDK_WINDOW_TYPE_HINT_UTILITY);
  GtkWidget* label = gtk_label_new ("This is my label");
  gtk_container_add (GTK_CONTAINER (window), label);
  gtk_widget_show_all (window);
  gtk_window_move (GTK_WINDOW (window), 0,0);
  gtk_main();
  return 0;
}

This behavior, deciding on the reference point of the window should be controlled with gravity1. So implementing gravities could solve this problem.

With no proper/easy way to get the size of the window decorations, this bug makes it extremely hard to place a window at an exact offset from the screen borders.

I think this is a duplicate of https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/1341 but you wanted me to file a new bug report. That issue was closed with https://github.com/i3/i3/pull/3184, but I think the bug has resurfaced or the PR didn't fix the issue.

i3 version

Binary i3 version:  4.23 (2023-10-29) © 2009 Michael Stapelberg and contributors
Running i3 version: 4.23 (2023-10-29) (pid 14541)
Loaded i3 config:
  /home/rein/.config/i3/config (main) (last modified: Wed 03 Jan 2024 12:59:17 AM CET, 6288274 seconds ago)

The i3 binary you just called: /usr/bin/i3
The i3 binary you are running: i3

Config file

This happens with default configuration.

Linux distribution & Version

ArchLinux

Are you using a compositor?

picom

Logfile

No response

[i3bot]

I don’t see a link to logs.i3wm.org. Did you follow https://i3wm.org/docs/debugging.html? (In case you actually provided a link to a logfile, please ignore me.)

[LevitatingBusinessMan]

The proper way to fix this bug would be to tackle gravities (https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/1335). Or completely comply with wm-spec1. But just changing the reference point should suffice with this specific bug.

[orestisfl]

#1341 was specifically about this:

i3 calculates that the left-top corner of the frame would be at (0, -9) and decides to resort to putting it at the center of the screen.

not about respecting gravity hints.

As about this ticket, I don't see why i3 "must" default to north-west gravity instead of static. I agree it's more user-friendly behavior but I don't see why the current behavior is an i3 bug.

[LevitatingBusinessMan]

https://github.com/i3/i3/issues/1341 was specifically about this:

i3 calculates that the left-top corner of the frame would be at (0, -9) and decides to resort to putting it at the center of the screen.

Ah I see, though the root cause for that is still that applications are confused by the default gravity of i3 right?

The NorhWestGravity really is meant to be the default, and this is what applications expect. From the GTK3 docs1:

The default window gravity is #GDK_GRAVITY_NORTH_WEST which will typically “do what you mean.”

If i3 doesn't like this behavior and instead wants to default to STATIC gravity that is fine, but then I think it definitely should respect gravity hints. Otherwise an application cannot correctly control its position.

If I currently want to write an application that spawns a floating window at an offset from the screen, it seems like I would have to set the gravity hint, but then also a special clause where the user is using i3wm, and then detect the size change when reparenting the window so I can detect the size of the titlebar and work that in. But like stapelberg said:

I don’t think the actual application should ever be interested in the height of the title bar.

[LevitatingBusinessMan]

My reasoning is that I am trying to spawn windows that serve as notifications. Thus I want them to float and appear in a specific corner. I preferably want to keep i3's decorations on them, but as you can imagine this has turned into a hassle due to the static gravity.