Magnetic Window Edge

newfoundpower09 · 28 Jul 2010

Anyone who is familiar with the Gnome Desktop on Ubuntu Linux should have noticed a certain characteristic about the windows. When a window is moved sufficiently close to another window, to any task-bar, or to the edge of the screen, the edge of the active window snaps to the other object and gives the slightest bit of resistance when pulled away. It is as if the windows are slightly "magnetic." This is very helpful when aligning windows and organizing workspaces. The Windows program called Steam behaves the same way, as do the Windows 7 desktop gadgets. This is how I would like all windows to behave in future Microsoft Windows releases, but I don't know how to go about suggesting this to a Microsoft representative.

I am not a software developer, so I cannot program this functionality into Aero, or I most definitely would. It shouldn't be that difficult though, especially for an experienced programmer. Just thought I'd open this up for discussion.

joel406 · 28 Jul 2010

Good idea really.

MS does check this forum out from time to time maybe they will see this thread.

logicearth · 28 Jul 2010

newfoundpower09 said:

It shouldn't be that difficult though, especially for an experienced programmer.

Bit off topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine. I get clients all the time saying "it shouldn't be that difficult" like they would know? These things are more difficult then you know, I tell them.

newfoundpower09 · 29 Jul 2010

logicearth said:

newfoundpower09 said:

It shouldn't be that difficult though, especially for an experienced programmer.

Bit off topic, but this is a pet peeve of mine. I get clients all the time saying "it shouldn't be that difficult" like they would know? These things are more difficult then you know, I tell them.

Sorry, I didn't mean to annoy anyone, lol. I realize writing code is tedious, and it is very difficult to work out all the bugs; I just figured it would be similar to the snap features that already work, and that it would just need a bit of tweaking.

Davidxtux · 29 Jul 2010

That particular task of "snapping to" the edges wouldn't be that difficult at all. Most the code is already done in Windows 7 and would only require some slight modification to use with all explorer items. The problem, which I'm sure is one of the reason microsoft didn't add the code, was compatibility. Things would just "stick" where they shouldn't and certain fullscreen applications wouldn't minimize.