60501 - Preferences window initial geometry too small for non-Latin-1 fonts

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: XUL, defect, P3)

Description

[Adrian Havill]

On Japanese systems, the font that is used by Mozilla is larger than on English
systems (e.g. Red Hat Linux 7 vs Red Hat Linux 7J). When you go to Edit...
Preferences... the user needs to manually increase the size of the dialog window
to see some of the options.

In other windows, the initial window size for the Preferences dialog seems to be
calculated for a Western font.

Manually stretching the dialog window (should your window manager allow it)
allows you to see all the controls, though.

Comment 1

[Adrian Havill]

Attachment: Shows pref window with default geometry on system with Japanese fonts

Comment 2

[Christopher Blizzard (:blizzard)]

adding ben

Comment 3

[Christopher Blizzard (:blizzard)]

...and erik

Comment 4

[Peter Trudelle]

->evaughan to see if box is sizing things as its told

Comment 5

[Keyser Sose]

Marking NEW. Its related to the other prefences window bugs but not the same.

Comment 6

[Dawn Endico]

this bug has a patch which needs to be reviewed. adding keywords.

Comment 7

[John Morrison]

Actually, that's a screenshot, not a patch. Removing 'patch, review'

Comment 8

[Mirek]

Similar problem for all fonts. PC, Windows95/98, build 2001021508.
To reproduce: In Windows open Desktop Properties - tab
Appearance, change for item Message Box the Font Size (say double it, from 8 to
15 for MS sans serif), Apply change.  

Return to Mozilla and open Edit/preferences - the window is badly sized.
With sufficiently large font several options could be hidden below the bottom
border. (Similar to existing posted attachement, depending on the size of the font.)

Expected: Properly sized window or appearance of scrollbars.

Comment 9

[Peter Trudelle]

resolving as wontfix, would have to measure all panels, which would take far too
long.  dialog is resizable, could even have scrollbars in worst case.

Comment 10

[Erik van der Poel]

How about automatically growing the dialog when the user switches to a larger
panel?

Comment 11

[John Morrison]

We (jrgm/evaughan) actually discussed that briefly as an option, but it seemed
it would be an odd user experience. (I realize that some gtk apps do this, but
I personally have found it odd). I suppose, though, that ben might have some
comments, owning the UI as he does. Ben?

Comment 12

[Erik van der Poel]

Perhaps it would seem a little odd to some people if the dialog grew when the
user selected a larger panel, but I find scrollbars in a dialog to be worse.
The dialog wouldn't have to shrink when the new panel was smaller. That way,
the dialog would eventually reach a stable size (largest size) and stay that
way.

Comment 13

[Ben Goodger (use ben at mozilla dot org for email)]

No, No, No.

No jumping dialogs, no forced resize, no scrollbars.

The solution here is to redesign the UI so it fits. The preferences dialog in 
seamonkey currently is a joke. Compare to 4.x which is much smaller.