4 ms·
If you use KDE, you can work around this because of the powerful feature set the window manager has for setting custom window behavior. 1. Right click the PIP
by ndiddy 4mo ago
If you use KDE, you can work around this because of the powerful feature set the window manager has for setting custom window behavior.
1. Right click the PIP window and then click "More Actions-> Special Window Settings".
2. On the window that pops up, click "Add Property", and add "Window title". Change the drop-down from "Unimportant" to "Exact match" (this works on Firefox because the window title is always "Picture-in-Picture", you might have to do something slightly different on Chrome if it does something different).
3. Click "Add Property" again, add "Keep above other windows", change the drop-down to "Force", and change the radio button to "Yes".
4. From now on, all PIP windows will show up on top of other windows.
It would definitely be nicer if there was some sort of "always on top" permission that applications could request, but it's not too bad.
- TiredOfLife 4mo agoFor Chrome it's "Picture in picture"
- idoubtit 4mo agoNot too bad? A hidden procedure with ten clicks, which the user has to repeat for each web browser. And it may break at any time if the browser changes some details. Or if KDE changes. And it's specific to KDE, with no alternatives in most Wayland WMs. All that for _one_ feature which works out-of-the-box with Xorg, and which Wayland removed for security reasons. From what I've seen, sharing the screen is another common feature which was broken with Wayland and is still painful. I don't think Wayland's security model is very relevant to me since I have faith in Debian for filtering out rogue applications. So I have to reason to drop my smooth UX for a world of "not too bad" workarounds.
- thesuitonym 4mo agoLook, I'm not a Wayland booster, I still prefer X11 most of the time, but this is really the way it should work. Applications should not be allowed to dictate how windows appear. That is the job of the window manager. Chrome's PIP is a stupid workaround for Windows and Mac because they do not have robust window management.
- senfiaj 4mo ago>> Chrome's PIP is a stupid workaround for Windows and Mac because they do not have robust window management. What are you talking about? It's very convenient when I watch video while I do some work or entertaining thing on other web page or app. It's fine if you don't want to use it but many people do.
- thesuitonym 4mo agoYes, it's fine, but it shouldn't be necessary. If Windows and Mac OS just had native support for always-on-top windows, you wouldn't need it.
- c-hendricks 4mo agoI actually prefer macOS's PiP handling compared to other operating systems. In that it's a blessed concept that only goes to one corner of the screen and can be shunted out of the way easily.
- thesuitonym 4mo agoNow imagine if that was designed properly, and you could just do that to any window, regardless of what the program thinks it should look like.
- bombela 4mo agoI use pinned (always above + on all workspace/desktop) quite often. And to make it ergonomic I scripted kwin and set some shortcuts. So yes, you can have any window PiP the way you like. But it requires you to do a long sequence of actions. Versus a single click for very specific PiP behavior. Consider a window in a web browser tab. You could click the PiP button, which will pop out a tiny window, most likely already in a corner of the screen. This window is a mini video player. Your original browser tab stays untoucher, still at the same place in your web browser tab list, the rest of the tab still readable and scrollable etc etc. Or, you could clone the tab. Move it to its own window. Locate the video. Put it in full screen. Un-fullscreen the window. Click on the pin button. Resize the window to the corner. Same result, but not the same effort.
- sho_hn 4mo agoNote there is also a far simpler one: You can right-click the window on the taskbar and click Keep Above. This works for any window.
- account42 4mo agoBut then you'll have to do it every time.
- gf000 4mo ago> I have faith in Debian for filtering out rogue applications Sorry but all I can say to that is: lol As for security, it's easy/possible to cut holes into a solid wall. But if your whole system is swiss cheese, you can't plug all of them in. Wayland is a solid wall where protocols are the means to cut new holes. Sure, protocol development is slow (at least their acceptance), but this is the proper way to do it. And even if you have faith in your applications, do you also have faith in your data? Because it's a mostly C/c++ application set, one vulnerability is enough to make them malicious. And with the beautifully engineered default "GNU/Linux" userspace security model, the only thing a random script can't do on your machine is install a new video card driver. But everything else is under the same user and readily accessible with full network access.
- account42 4mo agoDebian applications are not sandboxed so gimping the window system gains you exactly nothing. And yes, we can expect Debian to filter rogue applications.
- boca_honey 4mo agoWow, I guess Linux is only free if you don't value your time.
- mixmastamyk 4mo agoI tried this for getting windows to open where I want them instead of the center of the screen. Couldn't figure it out in five minutes. Though I'll probably try again, this shouldn't be a problem.
- extraduder_ire 4mo agoOne difference I notice in x11 gnome vs wayland gnome is firefox's PIP window is always on top on x11 even if I deselect "Always on top" (super + right click menu) in wayland that works fine and is even always on top by default. I much prefer the latter, especially since I get the choice.