can_dock should never be false.

can_dock should not depend on the presence of HDMI output in order to be set to TRUE. If anything, it should depend on the presence of mouse and keyboard.

When I plug in a USB mouse and keyboard, I want squeekboard to go away, I want to disable scaling (set to 1.0), and I want decent window management. None of those wants have anything to do with whether an external display is connected. I frequently use my device this way, with usb keyboard/trackpad only and no external display in landscape mode. The user experience of constantly dismissing squeekboard is very unpleasant and completely ruins the quasi-laptop fun.

Why not just default to undocked if no HDMI is present, and just leave it up to the user to enter docked mode when he connects in HID? What justification is there for ever setting can_dock to false? Why override the user's intent?

Because docked mode means you have at least a large enough screen, mouse (or touchpad) and keyboard available.

When I plug in a USB mouse and keyboard, I want squeekboard to go away, I want to disable scaling (set to 1.0), and I want decent window management. None of those wants have anything to do with whether an external display is connected.

Because this is not useful on small phone screens. I assume you're talking about another device here? If it's a tablet then this makes more sense but then it's not about docked mode but about a tablet mode that would work differntly anyway,

No, I mean on my phone. It's useful enough to hack on phosh itself and write bug reports complaining about it.

You also want display scaling 100% and landscape mode so automatically enabling docked mode is only one part of the problem and you can easily flip it off. I'd suggest to look at full picture and propose a solution that (at least eventually) can handle all parts instead of picking at one particular thing (and open a separate report for this).

Wait, you want to flip it on although it's off. Still: a solution should include the other steps (e.g. scaling as well since #489 won't help here since it's the same device in different scenarios. So with your keyboard you want:

from current docked mode:

• the osk to hide

similar to current docked mode:

• more flexible window placement (but likely not floating) so a mixture of the current floating and auto-maximization off

not from current docked mode:

• gtk to think there's plenty of screen space and touch only input

additionally you want:

• scaling 100%
• portrait mode
• likely no bottom bar

Hopefully that's sufficient to show this really isn't 'docked' mode as in 'you have the same stuff as with a laptop' but something different that should be handled separately.

As a side note: since all you need is gsettings toggleable right a way you can do that with simple script that:

• runs wlr-randr
• toggles the corresponding gsettings

What are the corresponding gsettings? Where are they documented? How is the user supposed to know this? Even skimming over the phosh source code, it's not clear to me. "gsettings set ..." ? I wouldn't mind using a script like scale_screen to manage this if I knew what to tell it. I've googled around, but I couldn't find squat.

"Hopefully that's sufficient to show this really isn't 'docked' mode as in 'you have the same stuff as with a laptop' but something different that should be handled separately."

No. I want exactly like a laptop when I have mouse/keyboard available. I won't be touching the screen at all. When mouse is present, I want total control over windowing. I do want floating windows when I think they're appropriate. I especially want Firefox's picture-in-picture to be resizeable and always-on-top, but that might be a wayland thing, not a phosh/phoc thing. I don't want the UI to ever say "no, you're not allowed to do that". The purpose of a user interface is to facilitate the user's usage of the system in whatever way he sees fit, not obstruct it.

As I understand it, Portrait mode is default. I think that may have been an error in your comment. Portrait mode chokes many websites horribly on the L5 and PP, since they both only have 720 pixels in width. It's much worse with scaling above 100%. Many websites are only usable in landscape, and squeekboard's terminal layout is much better in landscape (or 1.25 scaling and below), with the esc and tab keys on the main alphabet screen (hey, at least it has almost all the keys, so y'all have a leg up on maliit). On my system, I overwrote the default layout with the terminal layout, because I was tired of switching to terminal layout in every_single_app that's not a terminal. I always want all the keys. There should be a setting for this, or at least it could remember the last mode used for each app. Buggy touch in firefox makes esc mandatory for dismissing menus, while ctrl, alt, and arrow keys are always nice to have.

I use 1.4 scaling for touch by default in phoc.ini, and use wl-randr to switch 1.0 for mouse/keyboard. In landscape mode, the panels alone chew up about 1/4 of the screen at 2.0 with 720 pixels vertical. In Firefox, with browser chrome and whatnot, UI chews up about 1/2. If the keyboard is also up, only a tiny sliver of the site is visible. At 1.0 it isn't any worse than a 720p laptop.

Getting rid of the bottom bar to bring up the task switcher and app drawer seems dubious. While the long-list-of-apps-in-alphabetical-order model seems terrible and inappropriate to me (old-fashioned menu categories, please!), at least it's a launcher. While Alt+tab switches windows, Alt+F2 does nothing. If I don't already have a terminal open, how will I run anything? Am I overlooking some other keyboard shortcut for launching apps?

To be clear, I think phosh+squeekboard is the best mobile UI available, iOS and Android included. These are my only complaints. I dislike everything else a lot more.

Super+arrow keys work very well for snapping windows when desired. This works well enough that the user should not be prevented from using floating windows if he wants.

In the photo I posted, the terminal window is floating. This is very much on purpose.

My first thought was: "What is this? A computer for ants?"

I have to admit: Pretty cool :)

I really don't understand the effort that went into phosh in order to prevent the user from doing this.

Without having been involved in the design process I would argue that it was simply designed for more conventional use cases.

And while I don't have a strong opinion I would suggest keeping the default behaviour as it is but having a gsetting override can_always_dock or similar which users who really want that behaviour can enable themselves.

I really don't understand the effort that went into phosh in order to prevent the user from doing this.

you sure know how to motivate people!

Docked mode is nothing more than just an automated switch for various gsettings, which is something you can do by yourself without relying on the button in phosh. The disabled button doesn't prevent you from enabling everything docked mode does by yourself, it only makes it a bit less convenient - and for a good reason, since your use case goes beyond what docked mode actually does, so just a single button wouldn't be enough there anyway.

@sebastian.krzyszkowiak yes, see #522 (comment 144638)

closed

reopened

The user experience of constantly dismissing squeekboard is very unpleasant and completely ruins the quasi-laptop fun.

This is going to be dealt with at some point in a way that doesn't rely on an explicit docked mode: squeekboard#254

Issue moved to https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/Phosh/phosh/issues/522

closed