Add snap layouts popup on the maximize button

[netlinux-ai]

Add snap layouts popup on the maximize button

Hovering a window's maximize button pops up a grid of layout templates, in the
manner of Windows 11's snap layouts. Each template is drawn as a miniature of
the monitor split into zones; the zone under the pointer is highlighted, and
clicking it moves and resizes the window to fill that part of the monitor's
usable area.

Implementation

• The popup is a new internal window (openbox/snap.c) painted with the
  theme's existing OSD appearances, so it follows the user's theme with no new
  theme requirements. It is anchored below the maximize button and clamped to
  the monitor.
• It appears after a configurable hover delay, and is taken down on a short
  delay when the pointer leaves (so it can cross the gap between button and
  popup), or immediately on a click elsewhere, a keypress, or the client being
  unmanaged.
• Zone clicks resize via client_move_resize against the monitor's usable
  area (screen_area), so panels/struts are respected. Fullscreen, shaded and
  maximized states are cleared first.
• Windows without move/resize functions never get the popup.

Configuration

A new <snapLayouts> block in rc.xml (schema added to rc.xsd):

<snapLayouts>
  <enabled>yes</enabled>
  <delay>500</delay>
  <!-- optional custom layouts, in percent of the monitor's usable area -->
  <layout>
    <zone x="0" y="0" width="50" height="100"/>
    <zone x="50" y="0" width="50" height="100"/>
  </layout>
</snapLayouts>

Six layouts are built in (halves, thirds, quarters, etc.) and are used when
none are configured.

Testing

In daily use as the author's session WM on X11 (glib 2.88, amd64, dual
monitor with an xfce4-panel).

[sbnwl]

@netlinux-ai
Could you please add few pictures to show the impactful changes it brings to the user experience using Openbox. I am already hopeful it is great feature.

(just to clear out the speculation from the description of the pull request)

[netlinux-ai]

This is just a quickie to show it.

Popup appears after about a second. You select the region. The shot shows selecting the top-right quadrant. Then you click and it reshapes the window to that part of the screen. It's just copying the way it's done in Windows 11. I had use of a windows machine and thought it's quite useful so I got Claude to implement it in the window manager I use.

It looks a pretty clean implementation

I use it all the time now on a couple of machines and so far no bugs and side effects.

[sbnwl]

@netlinux-ai
I have an update here. I applied both PR48 and PR49 patches in the upstream Debian source and created Ubuntu launchpad PPAs as follows:

1. Testing PPA: Both PR49 and PR48 patches incorporated together in source code and resulting compiled binaries at https://launchpad.net/~sbnwl/+archive/ubuntu/openbox-workstation-next
2. Stable PPA: Only PR49 patch incorporated in the source code at https://launchpad.net/~sbnwl/+archive/ubuntu/openbox-workstation.

If you use Ubuntu 26.04, you can add these PPAs to your system and test the resulting performance. So far there are zero regressions in my testing on Ubuntu 26.04 on both PPAs. Both patches, individually or together, work fine in the PPAs.

The advantage (or the good thing) about both patches is that they enhance the Openbox experience, like modern desktop environments provide. Also, the patches do not alter the behavior of existing openbox themes. Both the old and new themes can adopt to the new change if someone likes to do so.

See some screenshots to observe and understand the new behavior.

[netlinux-ai]

Yes I was going for extending the current behaviour not changing it.

I'm not sure the shots show the popup correctly.
Just looks like an empty popup.
I think the zones are just really faint in the shot.

I have another PR if you are interested: adding buttons to the top bar for layers and bringing up obconf.
Just to make it easier and quicker to do those task.

[sbnwl]

1. "I'm not sure the shots show the popup correctly.
   Just looks like an empty popup.
   I think the zones are just really faint in the shot."

Yes, the zones are faint because of the Hovertest theme I created, which does not have great contrast for the popup. The contrast in the popup is better enhanced by using other built-in openbox themes. The good thing is that the tiling works.

2. "I have another PR if you are interested: adding buttons to the top bar for layers and bringing up obconf."

I think this would be a permanent distraction sort of thing sitting on the titlebar. People only like either keyboard shortcuts to manage tiling or the popup as alternative for on-demand tiling. The simple and minimal, the better the acceptability among users.

Perhaps you could test the PPA sometime. Use any stock Openbox theme you like or a new themerc, and don't forget to add the following block of keys in themerc file:

border.width:                  0
padding.width:                 0
padding.height:                8
window.handle.width:           0
window.client.padding.width:   0
menu.overlap:                  2
*.justify:                     Left
window.button.wistoh:          17
window.title.kgrip:            0

The new key window.button.wistoh defines the width/height aspect ratio of window buttons, and the new key window.title.kgrip defines the empty space (available for grip) above and below the button in the titlebar.

[netlinux-ai]

Well that's fine but this is what I have:

The button between the minimise and maximise is to start obconf

This is obconf with the layer and obconf button conf.

In a separate thread I was also thinking about obconf and the theme creation and management.

[sbnwl]

I think you should have hover-to-tile popup only.
No obconf (O) or layer (Y), which would do too much scattered patching in the source tree.

I believe to keep neat and minimal patch footprints across the source tree.