When number of workspaces is set to 1, the Spread no longer works

Yes, I have the same issues after upgrading to Ubuntu 12.04..... what a sick distro..... and even the screensaver is doesn't work as before....

I wonder why the team don't make a fully test before roll-out such LTS version!!

Currently, there still no one be assigned to handle this bug... how long should we waiting to enjoy the standard multi-tasking / multi-window? WHO knows.......

I just have to save my composing email in draft, and then close this mail window, and then go back to the Thunderbird inbox to check some reference info. in another mail.... and then open the draft mail again to continue my composing...... what a shit execise...

Workaround: Revert to 2x2 workspaces and ignore the extra workspaces (certainly not ideal but works for me)

@Ben: the distro is tested, you are just used non standard options

@Sebastien: Ben may have been a little crass about it, but the fact is that this is a regression since 12.04 was released. It worked in 12.04 out of the box, but then stopped working with the Unity 5.12 upgrade.

Surely you can't be serious in saying that we can only expect Ubuntu to work if we stick with strictly "standard" options! Does that mean that if I include more launchers than are there by default, or if I decide to change the panel to display the day and month, not just the time, then I can't expect it to work because it's not a standard option? That's just silly. I expect minor bugs and issues to arise, so I'm not about to go on a rant about this issue, but your regression test suite really should include not just one standard configuration, but other common configurations and boundary cases too. Don't you think?

> Surely you can't be serious in saying that we can only expect Ubuntu to work if we stick with strictly "standard" options!

I didn't say that nor closed the bug, I just lowered the importance because it means most users will not be affected by the issue, only few technical users go out of their way to go and change such options

> Does that mean that if I include more launchers than are there by default, or if I decide to change the panel to display the day and month, not just the time, then I can't expect it to work because it's not a standard option?

Those are standard options, Ubuntu provides an user interface in its default installation to change them and they are fully supported

> That's just silly. I expect minor bugs and issues to arise, so I'm not about to go on a rant about this issue, but your regression test suite really should include not just one standard configuration, but other common configurations and boundary cases too. Don't you think?

Compiz has tons of compiz, it's already hard enough to test cover the default installation configuration, not speaking about the number of combination you can get by tweaking every single possible compiz setting ... and yes it's almost impossible to properly support all of those, that's why there are effort to reduce the number of options provided and to stick to the ones we can support

Note that using 1 workspace is something we want to support so don't worry this bug will not be closed and the issue should be fixed at some point (though it might take a while due to resources issues)

I have this problem too

It was very hard for me to relate this problem to, and find, this bug report

It is very not obvious to find how to get rid of the work space switcher so most people surely do not have this bug

If it was easy to get rid of the switcher icon I'm guessing this would be a common bug

At first I considered leaving the switcher in the launcher because I may use the feature in the future but because it is grayscale, clashes with and is brighter than the other icons I use, I removed it along with the removable drive icon as I don't need that to access my removable drives (neither do I need the trash but I read that is another issue and is under study)

At this point I'm also thinking I may have left the workspace switcher, and maybe even the drive icon, in the launcher if they placed themselves from the bottom of the launcher (from the trash upwards) rather than after the other icons from the top down. It seems to me this would look nicer as the grayscale icons (trash, switcher, and drive, would be grouped together and separated from the other icons if the launcher was not full

Most users, specially those migrating from other OS, only use one workspace. Having four workspaces is confusing for those users, as it's easy to loose windows. I installed Ubuntu in more than twenty laptops (friends and family) and NOBODY is using more than one workspace, so I always reduce the number of workspaces from four to one. As I said, I do that because sometimes they accidentally moved a window to another workspace and could not find it.

I think it's a mistake that Ubuntu doesn't provide an easy way to change the number of workspaces in the default installation, or the option to remove the workspace switcher icon from the dash. They are imposing their default settings to the users, making it harder to change them and not caring about bugs if you are not using these default settings. Before Unity, it was very easy to change the number of workspaces, as it is very easy to do it in Gnome Shell. The current direction Ubuntu is taking is to remove the options to customize your desktop (eg. unity "dodge windows" behaviour). Even if their decisions are the least convenient for users...

BTW, I don't think changing the number of workspaces is "tweaking every single possible compiz setting".

I'll echo the sentiments of jsevi83. Using a single workspace seems to be the norm for almost every Ubuntu user with multiple monitors that I've met. Such users are also the ones most affected by a bug that doesn't let you easily pick out multiple windows open across more than one screen.

This was a very annoying and frustrating bug for me and it took quite some searching to find the solution in the forums. I've used Ubuntu since 7.04, have only ever used one workspace, and could figure out what in the world happened when spread stopped working after I installed Unity 5.12.

@all: you may also want to subscribe Bug #997322 (Add a possibility to remove the "Workspace switcher" launcher)

I have the same problem. I mostly use two monitors so I really don't need more than one workspace.
@David: Ignoring the extra workspaces would do, but Ubuntu moves windows automatically to another workspace if it thinks the current one is too full. Do you know a way to change that behaviour?

@mastarh: I haven't encountered that issue, and I'm afraid I can't think of anything to suggest - maybe post a question on AskUbuntu? good luck!

Same problem on Ubuntu 12.04 with Unity 5.12 and single desktop

+1, forced to set num of workspaces to 2 because having just 1 causes 4 to be shown instead

Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote on 2012-05-18:

"I just lowered the importance because it means most users will not be affected by the issue, only few technical users go out of their way to go and change such options"

As others have already stated, this is simply false. Now that you know it, will you please return the status of this bug to High? Please?

The launcher replaces the taskbar by using Spread. Newbies don't get multiple workspaces (especially when Unity decides to put apps on them "automatically"), hence we, Ubuntu evangelists, disable them so newbies don't flee back to Windows. If Spread is disabled when we, evangelists, make it easier for new users to stay on Ubuntu, what do you expect us to tell them? Learn to use workspaces and shut up?

Thanks for your understanding.

Back to 5.10 for all my users while this is being fixed.

> As others have already stated, this is simply false. Now that you know it, will you please return the status of this bug to High? Please?

Oh, right, somebody on the internet stated that's false, if that go written on the internet that must be true... </irony>

> The launcher replaces the taskbar by using Spread. Newbies don't get multiple workspaces (especially when Unity decides to put apps on them "automatically")

Not sure what you mean there. Unity doesn't put anything on other workspace, if it does that's a bug and "High" one in this case.

"Newbies" are you said might get confused by workspace, but how are your newbies changing workspace without noticing? Using the launcher icon? If so they probably know where they click and can click on it again ... it's also easy to explain them "if you click there you get an overview of what is running"

> hence we, Ubuntu evangelists, disable them so newbies don't flee back to Windows. If Spread is
> disabled when we, evangelists, make it easier for new users to stay on Ubuntu, what do you expect us to tell them? Learn to use
> workspaces and shut up?

You are just contradicting yourself there and confirming it only affects users who have somebody technical who installed their system and went out of this way to change that settings. Let's be realistic, there is no way a normal user would find how to change the number of workspace on a stock ubuntu install, there is no ui for that.

> Back to 5.10 for all my users while this is being fixed.

Hum, so it's working with unity 5.10, do you downgrade compiz as well? The bug is currently assigned to compiz, if that's an unity issue it should be reassigned

> "Oh, right, somebody on the internet stated that's false, if that go written on the internet that must be true... </irony>"

...was about to say that myself, and I'm the submitter. :-)

> Not sure what you mean there. Unity doesn't put anything on other workspace, if it does that's a bug and "High" one in this case.

Then I'll open one, but basically, yes: Unity can, and does, put things on other workspaces under certain circumstances, and to make matters worse, I'm not sure those circumstances are uncommon.

The one I'm most intimately familiar with right now: laptop that I use in a dual-screen configuration at work, but a single-screen configuration at home. I place Empathy and its chat windows on the external monitor's screen at work (to the right, physically). At home, when I launch Empathy, nothing shows up anywhere - because the Empathy window has been automatically placed on the *workspace* to the right.

(Note: I never use workspaces proper, and this is not a problem that occurs when I lower the number of available workspaces to 1.)

> "Hum, so it's working with unity 5.10, do you downgrade compiz as well? The bug is currently assigned to compiz, if that's an unity issue it should be reassigned"

...it should definitely be reassigned, then. I can keep current Compiz and downgrade unity to 5.10, and that does work as the other poster says. (I'm not *going* to do that, because the bugfixes and advancements in 5.12 outweigh this defect, but still).

@Sebastian Bacher:

I always forget this is Ubuntu and arrogance is a requirement to have some power in the organization. Sorry Sebastian for forgetting the basic rules.

If you really can't understand what I and a few others have said here about newbies having difficulties with workspaces (and why we have to remove them for those newbies), you must be really really high on the Ubuntu power decision making.

Good for you. Good luck.

Plonk.

What is low priority for Ubuntu is not necessarily low priority for Compiz (which is used in other distros too).

Compiz -> High
Compiz (Ubuntu) -> Low

Sebastien,

Instead of seeing this issue for what it is, a very clear and obvious bug (and one, I'd point out, that 36 people and counting went out of their way to find on the internet in an effort to fix it on their machines), you continue to push this as something that, if experienced, is the fault of the end-user for being naive enough to customize their installation. This isn't a niche case of a user enabling just the right combination of esoteric plugins and complaing that things break. On the contrary, this is a bug that any user trying to replicate their workflow from Windows or OS X will find and that reflects poorly on the operating system.

While this is not a bug with Unity proper, your attitude brings to mind Bug #882274. This feature worked in the past, and now it's broken. I kindly suggest that Instead of telling all these users, "Yeah, we'll fix it... but you're wrong for having the bug so we'll take our sweet time," try to be understanding and less cynical. People didn't come here to start an argument with you, they came to fix a problem. Try not to forget that.

Sincerely,
   Dima

> If you really can't understand what I and a few others have said here about newbies having difficulties with workspaces (and why we have to remove them for those newbies)

We know that workspaces are an issue and that's being working, you having to install ccsm to remove them though is neither a proper solution nor a scalable one that's all I'm saying. In practice it means 99% of users don't have "the chance" to have a power user doing that tweak for them and such will run into the workspace issues and not into that specific bug. Now fixing the workspace issue is an High priority bug yes, we aim at properly fixing the issue not at properly giving power users a way to workaround poor design for 1% of users that can be reach this way

> Instead of seeing this issue for what it is, a very clear and obvious bug (and one, I'd point out, that 36 people and counting went out of their way to find on the internet in an effort to fix it on their machines), you continue to push this as something that, if experienced, is the fault of the end-user for being naive enough to customize their installation. This isn't a niche case of a user enabling just the right combination of esoteric plugins and complaing that things break. On the contrary, this is a bug that any user trying to replicate their workflow from Windows or OS X will find and that reflects poorly on the operating system.

shrug, do you guys realize that nobody claimed that:
- the bug is not valid
- users who tweak are wrong
- the bug will not be fixed

?

you guys just are making all that ranting just for a freaking bug tracker *setting*? That bug will likely be addressed in the next SRU despite being tagged as *Lowl*, you realize that?

I'm not making the guidelines:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Importance

"Low:
...
Bugs that have easy work-arounds
Bugs that affect unusual end-user configurations..."

that bug has an easy workaround and that bug affects "unusual end-user configurations" ... you can argue over that but if you were looking at stats, Ubuntu has million and users and it's likely that the vast majority of those just get confused by workspaces and don't have a friend technical enough to reduce their number of workspace to 1.

> While this is not a bug with Unity proper, your attitude brings to mind Bug #882274. This feature worked in the past, and now it's broken. I kindly suggest that Instead of telling all these users, "Yeah, we'll fix it... but you're wrong for having the bug so we'll take our sweet time," try to be understanding and less cynical. People didn't come here to start an argument with you, they came to fix a problem. Try not to forget that.

Shrug, again nobody said "you're wrong for having the bug so we'll take our sweet time", but I will tell you what:

- there are 1110 open bugs against compiz in Ubuntu
- those include issues which lead a part of the userbase to not be able to use compiz: segfaults, slowness, broken multiscreen handling, graphical corruptions, etc
- there are less than 3 people working on compiz at the moment
- there are other "regressions" and hot bugs

What you guys are ranting about is that those nice people who put lot of efforts, often spen...

Ok, I tracked it down to unity r2344 (https://code.launchpad.net/~3v1n0/unity/focused-non-top-windows-fix/+merge/102958)

Marco, since you created the issue could you have a look if it would be easy to fix for the next SRU? ;-)

I'm just checking it... But I actually can't reproduce the issue every time (I got it only once). I probably need to do more tests...

Marco, you're definitely a hero to (at least) 35 people :) Thank you! When will it be possible for us mortal users to obtain that fix?

If you're enough "brave" to use the unity/SRU ppa [1] you can get this in few hours, otherwise you need to wait the official package from archives.

[1] https://launchpad.net/~unity-team/+archive/sru

Thanks Marco, you've restored my faith in humanity.
Charlie
On Jun 29, 2012 6:15 PM, "Marco Trevisan (Treviño)" <mail@3v1n0.net> wrote:

> If you're enough "brave" to use the unity/SRU ppa [1] you can get this
> in few hours, otherwise you need to wait the official package from
> archives.
>
> [1] https://launchpad.net/~unity-team/+archive/sru
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/996604
>
> Title:
> When number of workspaces is set to 1, the Spread no longer works
>
> Status in Compiz Core:
> Triaged
> Status in Unity:
> Fix Committed
> Status in unity 5.0 series:
> Fix Committed
> Status in “unity” package in Ubuntu:
> Fix Committed
> Status in “unity” source package in Precise:
> Fix Committed
>
> Bug description:
> What it says in the title.
>
> I dislike multiple desktops, and also dislike the Workspace Switcher
> taking up a tile in my launcher. Even if I used multiple workspaces,
> I still wouldn't want the tile in my launcher.
>
> So I've used MyUnity to change the number of workspaces to 1. Up
> until Unity 5.12, this took care of both of my problems.
>
> Now, with Unity 5.12, doing this also disables the spread function.
> If I click the launcher tile for an application that has multiple
> windows, absolutely nothing happens. This makes it cumbersome to
> manage an app that has many windows open.
>
> Please revert whatever change disables spread on a single-workspace
> configuration. Alternately, please allow some way to remove the
> Workspace Switcher tile from the Launcher (that's a bigger problem to
> me than actually having workspaces I do not use).
>
> -----
>
> 3v1n0:
> The bug happens in Compiz due to the fact that window->defaultViewport()
> does not always return an invalid value when there are offscreen windows.
> For example this bug seems caused by "gtk-window-decorator" windows like
> this one: http://pastebin.ubuntu.com/1066811/ that according to compiz
> are in the same workspace of the window we're trying to focus, even if
> they're actually outside it.
> The bug doesn't seem to happen all the times here, but it happens always
> to many other users.
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/compiz-core/+bug/996604/+subscriptions
>

Daniel, I do think that there's a bug in Compiz causing this, see my comment in description.

OK, wow.

I hate to cloud up the bug with non-technical data, but Sebastian: I want to go on record stating that I fully agreed with your assessment, and *strongly* disagree with the assertion that you have some sort of an attitude problem.

I'm actually embarrassed that some of the more recent comments have been made in a defect report I submitted. I hope you do not think the entire community is as ornery and entitled as all that.

And, thank you for expediting the process despite all that. I'm not sure I would have had it in me to do the same.

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 6.0.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (6.0.0-0ubuntu1) quantal-proposed; urgency=low

  [ Didier Roche ]
  * debian/rules, debian/control, debian/unity-autopilot.install:
    - install new unity-autopilot package, containing autopilot bindings and
      test for Unity
    - add some python build-dep for executing setup.py
    - use dh_python2 and add some python:Depends dep for automatic python
      version detection
  * debian/control:
    - remove gnome-desktop dependency: not needed upstream anymore
    - unity Breaks older lenses due to path change
    - remove libgdu in build-dep
  * debian/libunity-core-6.0-5.install, debian/libunity-core-6.0-dev.install,
    debian/control:
    - version bump in libunity-core, change soname

  [ Matthieu Baerts (matttbe) ]
  * Update apport hook for python3 ; thanks to Edward Donovan (LP: #1013171)

  [ Łukasz 'sil2100' Zemczak ]
  * New upstream release.
    - compiz crashed with SIGSEGV in get_current_slide() from
      unity::BGHash::OnSlideshowTransition() (LP: #889625)
    - Unity is visible on top of fullscreen apps (LP: #734908)
    - App icon on the Unity Launcher lost track of running instance
      (LP: #772063)
    - unity crashed with NameError in reset_unity_compiz_profile(): global
      name 'GError' is not defined (LP: #778470)
    - compiz crashed with SIGSEGV in CompWindow::id() from getPaintMask()
      [compizminimizedwindowhandler.h] from unity::UnityWindow::glPaint()
      (LP: #851982)
    - HUD - Formatting of text in the auto-complete is wrong (LP: #939436)
    - [regression] Launcher is silent to screen reader users (LP: #949448)
    - still some accent issues with unity/nux (LP: #950740)
    - [regression] [precise] 3D apps run much slower under Unity (LP: #987304)
    - No launcher icon or Alt+Tab entry for Gimp windows (LP: #995916)
    - Locked smuxi launcher icon does not indicate smuxi running status
      (LP: #999820)
    - When number of workspaces is set to 1, the Spread no longer works
      (LP: #996604)
    - Much slower OpenGL frame rates with unityshell loaded, than plain compiz
      (LP: #988079)
    - Port to libudisks2 (LP: #1012000)
    - Desktop, Launcher and menu bar still visible when screen locked
      (LP: #886605)
    - Searching in the HUD freezes unity (LP: #1016239)
    - Dragged icons rendered under dash (LP: #1021541)
    - Regression in Launcher keyboard navigation (with Alt+F1) (LP: #1021549)
    - Unity dash is is much slower/laggy after revision 2469. (LP: #1021665)
    - Dash and Launcher - As soon as a user starts dragging a file from the
      Dash, there is a 'flicker' before the Launcher icons that are valid drop
      receptacles re-saturate (LP: #863230)
    - Dash - when a file is dragged from the Dash (Dash home, file lens, or
      music lens) and dropped on a Launcher icon, the Dash should
      automatically close (LP: #865168)
    - Refreshing active blur makes the dash painfully slow (LP: #874230)
    - Open dash, press Alt+f1 - dash remains open (LP: #919209)
    - application reopens itself when last instance is closed from
      windows/application switcher (LP: #926406)
    - HUD D...

Excellent, thanks!

Hello GonzO, or anyone else affected,

Accepted unity into precise-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unity/5.14.0-0ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please change the bug tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not, change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Works for me. Thanks again to everybody involved!

Submitter here: This works for me, too. Happy day, no more wasted tile!

Thanks to all the devs for going above and beyond the call of duty -- and rising above considerable unwarranted aggravation -- just to fix this tiny detail. The work is appreciated.

I don't know how to change the bug tag, but it looks like the previous poster did that already, so hooray.

This bug was fixed in the package unity - 5.14.0-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity (5.14.0-0ubuntu1) precise-proposed; urgency=low

  * New upstream release.
    - Unity launcher shows internal partitions after they have been unmounted
      (LP: #994163)
    - can't click to dismiss hud in the area where dynamic hud results are
      meant to appear (LP: #962651)
    - Spread/Scale should exit if Dash is invoked (LP: #944033)
    - Searching in the HUD freezes unity (LP: #1016239)
    - Dash - The search bar gets the focus when pressing invalid keys
      (LP: #931393)
    - unity crashed with NameError in reset_unity_compiz_profile(): global name
      'GError' is not defined (LP: #778470)
    - When number of workspaces is set to 1, the Spread no longer works
      (LP: #996604)
    - compiz crashed with SIGSEGV in CompWindow::id() from getPaintMask()
      from unity::UnityWindow::glPaint() (LP: #851982)
    - "Keyboard Shortcuts" overlay can cause annoyance (LP: #934062)
    - padding between last quicklist item and bottom edge is non-deterministic
      (changes randomly) (LP: #955158)
    - HUD Draws improperly while searching for results (LP: #932531)
    - compiz crashed with SIGSEGV in
      unity::ui::KeyboardUtil::GetKeycodeAboveKeySymbol() (LP: #920258)
    - Launcher - when a user starts dragging a item, any folded launcher icons
      that are valid drop receptacles should unfold (LP: #839717)
    - Dragging image from firefox/chrome to dock causes lagg/freeze
      (LP: #772445)
    - dash should open when pressing "super" in scale mode (LP: #1023811)
    - Multimonitor, Launcher - When the Launcher is set to autohide and
      'Sticky edges' are turned off, 'Launcher Edge Stop Overcome Pressure'
      seems to be broken when revealing the Launcher (LP: #987955)
    - Software Center add to launcher icon animation is delayed when the
      launcher is in auto-hide mode (LP: #1012896)
    - Purchased items are not being added to the Unity launcher (LP: #925014)
    - Unity Launcher Fails To Auto-Hide When Enabled & Installing Commercial
      Software (LP: #1002440)
    - Regression: shift+click on a launcher icon to open a new application
      instance gone (LP: #754565)
    - Regression: Installing apps causes a terrible visual glitch-- have to
      restart X.org. (LP: #981168)
    - Duplicated applications icons on quick application restart (LP: #1003574)
    - HUD - Formatting of text in the auto-complete is wrong (LP: #939436)
    - alt-backtick flickers between windows (LP: #987156)
    - [Hud] The result grid is not drawn in proximity of the search entry
      (LP: #1008603)
    - Dash and Launcher - As soon as a user starts dragging a file from the
      Dash, there is a 'flicker' before the Launcher icons that are valid drop
      receptacles re-saturate (LP: #863230)
    - [hud] The last button is not rounded (LP: #1008656)
    - Hud flickers when show up (LP: #1011507)
    - Dash maximise button changed location (LP: #987674)
    - launcher reordering "line" doesn't go to the bottom slot (LP: #971421)
    - Dash/HUD should close on "Spread" (LP: #870284)
    - Nothing should be written into the dash/hud searchbar whe...

I assigned Sam because I am pretty sure one of his branches solved it....confirmed it 100% is the hard part it seems.