simple-system-monitor@ariel: curious default width in Cinnamon 5.8+

[schorschii]

Desklet version/Build date

1.2.0

Cinnamon version

5.8+

Distribution

Mint 21.3

Graphics hardware and driver used

NVIDIA with proprietary driver

Desklet name and maintainer

simple-system-monitor@ariel @arielandrade

What happened?

Your desklet contains a version switch which introduced a default width of 300px in Cinnamon >=5.8. This leads to a big empty space on the right side:

On previous Cinnamon versions, the width was not set manually but determined automatically, which is more meaningful in my opinion. Can we bring the auto width back to 5.8+ or was this change really intentional?

Other information

No response

[rcalixte]

The issue is that the width is fixed in pixels but the font size is set by scale so there isn't a way to match the two on every system dynamically. The intention would be for users to configure it when first adding it but we could do something like double the default scale too. The reason the width was added was to prevent the variable nature of the values from constantly resizing the desklet as well.

My only concern is resetting the default value and how that could possibly affect existing installations. I believe it shouldn't impact any configured instances but unconfigured instances would be impacted. We could do a folder version bump to something like 6.2 and update the default size there. It would still impact users upgrading to 6.2 but at least clean installations would be unbothered going forward. I'm also open to any alternative ideas as well.

[rcalixte]

Apologies for the delay on this. I was mistaken on the default value and what changing it would impact. It is safe to update with no impact to existing installations. Hopefully this is a better default. Sorry again for the delay on this!

[schorschii]

No problem, thanks for addressing this now. Unfortunately I have to say that there is no difference in the current version when using font scale value 1.0 (the big empty space on the right side is still there).

[rcalixte]

Unfortunately I have to say that there is no difference in the current version when using font scale value 1.0 (the big empty space on the right side is still there).

Ah, sorry for the confusion there. There is still the issue of the dynamic width being too distracting. Unless we restrict font choices to monospace fonts and give the desklet a fixed character length, this would be the only way I can think of for the static width to work. Would it be better to align the desklet in the center of the defined width as a workaround?