Dragging a window to 2nd row or more fails in Overview

[Francewhoa]

Summary

Dragging a window to a workspace only works for the first row of the grid. Dragging a window to a workspace on the second or more row of the same grid, are automatically moved to the first row. This short two minutes video shows this challenge at:

• https://vk.com/video-225763421_456239017
  or
• https://rumble.com/v4sox7b-gnome-shell-wsmatrix-dragging-a-window-to-2nd-row-or-more-fails-in-overview.html
  or
• https://tube.fedi.quebec/w/i1pF3TgYQzSLnnJQs1GRsr

The needed end result is that users are able to drag a window to any workspaces on any rows within the grid

Any volunteer for a patch? Both me and the Ubertus.Org team would be happy, as volunteer, to contribute testing and documentation, if needed.

Steps to reproduce

1. Watch this short 2 minutes video for the Workspace-Matrix configuration and a summary of all the steps at:

   • https://vk.com/video-225763421_456239017
     or
   • https://rumble.com/v4sox7b-gnome-shell-wsmatrix-dragging-a-window-to-2nd-row-or-more-fails-in-overview.html
     or
   • https://tube.fedi.quebec/w/i1pF3TgYQzSLnnJQs1GRsr

2. Use the most recent stable Debian 12 Bookworm, GNOME 43.9, Wayland, and Workspace-Matrix 38

3. Using Workspace-Matrix, create a 5 x 4 grid. So total 20 Workspaces.

4. Using the Overview/Activities window, try to drag and drop a window to any Workspace between the Index 6 and 20. This fails. This is the challenge. The needed end result is that users are able to drag and drop windows to any Workspaces. Not just from 1 to 5 in this example.

5. Same result with GNOME Wayland or X11 (Xorg)

Speculated cause

My guess is that the cause of this challenge is related to this array of list. In other words, the drag and drop works only in the first array. Details about this are in those 2 comments:

• By @ebeem at Fix padding of workspace thumbnails in overview #181 (comment)

• By @SKelem at Show workspace matrix in activities overview #13 (comment)

Suggested resolution

How about those 2 steps:

1. Migrate _lists to one list? So that the drag and drop works. Another benefit of only one array is a better compatibility with other GNOME extensions.

2. Instead of arrays, use CSS to create the grid. This would keep the data and the display fully independent. Not interfering with each other.

Related tickets

Those tickets below seems to be about different challenges. Some tickets claim that the drag and drop is resolved. But this present ticket is to confirm that it is not resolved. This challenge can be reproduced with the steps above.

#177

#200

#231

#234

#259

#267

#273

[mzur]

Hi thanks a lot for the detailed report. Can you please try the changes of #270 and see if this fixes the issue for you?

[Francewhoa]

Thanks for your reply @mzur :) Will do. I'll add my result here.

[Francewhoa]

Done. Test result at #270 (review)

[Francewhoa]

Today, I added copies of my video from February 22nd, 2024 at:

• https://vk.com/video-225763421_456239017
  or
• https://rumble.com/v4sox7b-gnome-shell-wsmatrix-dragging-a-window-to-2nd-row-or-more-fails-in-overview.html

[Tan-Aki]

Hi !

Same error here.

Thanks a lot btw !!

[kenjo]

Hi !

Same error here.

Thanks a lot btw !!

I think everybody has this. does limit the usefulness of the plugin quite a bit.

[sanwablo]

Wasn't there already a patch for this? I can't seem to find it. This feature was working fine for me until I switched from Ubuntu 24.04 (Gnome 46) to Fedora 42 (Gnome 48).

Maybe I've already mentioned this, but drag-and-drop works flawlessly in the App Grid (with animations and everything), so the problem seems to be specific to the Activities Overview.

[Francewhoa]

Below are two temporary workarounds to move (drag and drop) any windows to another workspace

Option 1. Keyboard.

The steps below use the keyboard. Instead of the mouse.

Steps:

1. Using the mouse, left click on any window to select it.

2. Using the keyboard, press the Win key and hold it down. Then press the W key to switch to the Overview. Release both the Win and W keys.

3. Press those 3 keys at the same time and hold them down: Shift + Ctrl + Alt

4. Press any Arrow(s) key(s) to move the selected window to another workspace. For example, but not limited to, press the Right Arrow key to move the window to the right side workspace. Then press the Down Arrow key to move the window to the bottom row workspace. And so on. To any workspace. After you reach the destination workspace, release all keys.

5. Optionally, after all the above steps are down, press the Enter key to switch to the destination workspace

These steps above do not resolve #274. This is just a temporary workaround.

Option 2. KDE Plasma Activities.

Another temporary workaround is to use KDE Plasma instead of GNOME. With KDE Plasma, using its build-in Virtual Desktops and the Activities Switcher/Activities Manager, you're able to drag and drop any windows to any workspace. Very stable, fast, and highly customizable. For my present needs, I find KDE Plasma 6 to be much better than GNOME.

Short 5 minutes video at:

• https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?t=509&v=fWKbZlPI12Y

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWKbZlPI12Y&t=538

Homepage at https://kde.org/plasma-desktop/

Hire Dev

If you are interested to speed up the resolution of #274, I suggest to pay for the services of a freelance Developer (Dev). One with JavaScript proven experience. So that the Dev contribute a patch to this present gnome-shell-wsmatrix repository. In turn, the maintainer, @mzur, could review it and add it if he approves.

I do not have a financial conflict of interest with toptal. This above is a suggestion for your consideration and your decision. This is not a recommendation, not an endorsement.

[sanwablo]

I found the fix! It was mainland@f63cf909. See the original post here.

It works perfectly on the Gnome 48 Wayland session of Fedora 42.

@mzur Is it possible to add it to the official release?