[FR]: Separate top and bottom bar/island margins

[atimeofday]

Problem: When paired with another extension which creates window gaps (Forge), the floating/island Open Bar border margin setting creates excess space below the bar, as in the attached screenshot.

Note: With a bit of spare time I may be able to figure out all the pieces for a pull request, but for now, I believe this line of code refers to the (currently singular) margin slider in question: https://github.com/neuromorph/openbar/blob/edf36e1dc8f33a26d1e58c23a1c951b979114629/openbar%40neuromorph/prefs.js#L909

Solution Separate top/bottom margin sliders would allow me to trivially solve that issue, and hopefully be fairly easy to implement.

[neuromorph]

Hello,

This was asked once before, so I will look into it to add as a feature but may take a while as I am quite busy at the moment. Already, some new updates from GitHub are pending release.

Nevertheless, back then I had explained how to achieve this in code here. The line number may have moved a bit but the logic should be same, so you can follow that to get it working now, if you wish.

Thanks for reporting!

[atimeofday]

Aha!

Thanks for pointing me to that, I had tried searching but missed both that previous request and the bit of code where the margin is actually applied. I think that probably gives me the pieces I need for a manual alteration and/or PR. I'll see what I can do!

[atimeofday]

Success, probably!

I got it working locally and opened a PR https://github.com/neuromorph/openbar/pull/90 - it definitely needs reviewed before potentially merging, whenever you have a comfortable amount of spare time.

[DeepDoge]

I think instead of having a separated margin setting, having multiplier settings for top/left/bottom/right would be more flexible. Then we can remove the hard-coded margin * 3 or margin * 1.5 values.

[atimeofday]

I think instead of having a separated margin setting, having multiplier settings for top/left/bottom/right would be more flexible. Then we can remove the hard-coded margin * 3 or margin * 1.5 values.

I agree that separate top, bottom, and side (or left & right) margin settings would be best for flexibility, and I think I'll locally patch out the hard-coded multipliers for now. My three main concerns with implementing a PR were minimizing design alterations, maintaining the unified margin adjustment option, and not breaking existing configurations by replacing altered settings with new defaults.

I think I could implement the fully separate margin settings, but I don't have the experience or authority to address those three concerns while doing so. I'd be happy to learn and/or take design direction to update the PR.

[neuromorph]

Hello,

I also agree with the flexibility of separate multipliers. However, I have gone ahead with the Bottom Margin option for the reasons already mentioned by @atimeofday. Additionally, on one hand, this seems to be particularly a requirement for people using tiling to adjust the gap between the Bar and app windows. On the other hand, the settings are already overwhelming for many so I am also trying to be a bit cautious. Ideally, I would like to have few simpler options with sensible defaults and an Advanced section for each tab, maybe in the future. Thanks for the PR, it was merged earlier. I have modified it to work with Window-Max bar and also with bar in bottom position.

This is released in the new version (OpenBar 42) out recently. Please try the latest update and let me know.

Thanks.

[DeepDoge]

I see, my problem with existing margins are that they have hard coded multipliers, when I set margin to 10 not all sides have 10 unit margin, which confused me at first. Right now I am using a modified version of the extension with no hard-coded multipliers.

Later, when I have time I will try to open a PR for custom multipliers without breaking current users.

UPDATE: can't believe I still have no free time.