[FZ] dynamic resizing for canvas layouts

[Pontiac76]

Description of the new feature / enhancement

I'm running a 2x2 monitor setup. Three of the monitors have a pixel width of 1920, and one has a pixel width of 2560. One of the 1920s holds my task bar (Which is docked to the RIGHT of the screen), so, it's desktop width is roughly 1700 pixels, lets call it.

There's two things that I've run across with this setup.

If I RDP into this machine, for whatever reason, my task bar ends up going onto my primary monitor (Where games and such launch by default, usually) when I log back into it normally. I get it, I know why, I'm fine with that. The problem is when I move the task bar back to that 1700 monitor, that task bar goes to its minimum size and I need to manually resize it. I'm, again, fine with it. Windows doesn't remember the size of the bar between monitors. Ok.

However, with my resizing, I've noticed that the FancyZone layout can either be bigger or smaller. It doesn't dynamically resize according to what desktop space is available. Looking at the XML, it appears to be pixel dimension in size. I know the WMI can capture a desktop resize event, so having the code just resize based on the percentage of the zones size would be advantageous.

The other thing I've noticed is that I've created a canvas that was designed on one of my 1920 monitors. If I take that 1920 layout and put it on my 2560, it's not scaled out properly.

Scenario when this would be used?

When dealing with multiple monitors of different desktop sizes, having multiple layouts that "look" the same is cumbersome at best. Allowing for each layout to be created and defined PERCENTAGE wise based on the desktop (not screen) real estate would allow for a single profile of whatever configuration to be used across all available monitors. One place to edit, all monitors follow suit.

Supporting information

No response

[crutkas]

@Pontiac76 are you using canvas or grid style layouts?

[Pontiac76]

Canvas.

I just think that if the desktop work area can be dynamic based on the size of the task bar size, that FZ should accommodate. Not to mention, with multimonitor setups being really common, and many different screen sizes, it makes sense to use a percentage based scaling instead of hard-fixed pixels especially if the layout is to be put against multiple monitors.

[crutkas]

Grid is relational, feedback with canvas is people wanted precision, not relational. I don't know if we'll ever do this style shift.

What we are possibly going to shift to is allow a resolution / dpi shift and still allow a canvas on that monitor regardless if it is a direct match

[Pontiac76]

I appreciate the second paragraph, but I question the response about the first, and although this isn't a discussion forum, I'm interested to understand why the community wanted this. It just doesn't make sense to me, and maybe I'm missing a puzzle piece.

With screen sizes being dynamic, not static, a precision based canvas makes no sense. Especially when a canvas can be used on multiple screens of different desktop areas. Ok, fine, if I monkey with my task bar, then sure, I could accept that FZ isn't going to automatically adjust the layout. But if I've got one layout across multiple monitors of differing resolutions, my 2560 width design shouldn't abide by the layout my 1920 monitor holds as I'd lose a lot of the applications information, or, it'd be pushed off to a different monitor.

That said, if I design on a 2560 width monitor, I can't expect that layout to work on a 1920 screen to work effectively. But designing the other way, 1920 mapping out relationally to a 2560, makes sense. But that design process is on the user, not the software.

[crutkas]

web design or really want things to be certain sizes. it was for us, very clear people wanted precision based on the amount of work we had to do with the editor to enable it. Resizing grid based layouts is easy, canvas has tons of questions for how things get transformed / resized

Can you share your layout?

[ghost]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has been marked as requiring author feedback but has not had any activity for 5 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs within 5 days of this comment.

[Pontiac76]

Sorry for the delay on this. Attached the settings file.

zones-settings.zip
.