Re: [tlug] Linux Mint 18 window behaviour

[Lyle H Saxon <llletters@example.com>]

On Fri, May 5, 2017 at 5:25 PM, Brian Chandler <brian@example.com> wrote:
> (1) In response to a probably involuntary action by me (failing to hold
> the mouse exactly steady, accidentally touching a key, whatever), there
> is a silly sound, and the window I am looking at resizes to the top half
> of the screen. I never want this to happen, so where can I look to turn
> it off?

That's a "feature" that is triggered (I think) when you drag a window
over to the edge of the screen.  I don't know how to turn off that
productivity-killer, but if you watch how and where you position
windows, it can be avoided.  I think the idea (begun by that Wonderful
Company in Washington?) is that it's a quick way to get two windows
occupying exactly half (each) of the screen?

> (2) Margins on printing. This is a wide-ranging problem, that lots of
> people are trying to be terribly helpful, so when they are responsible
> for processing a page image, they add some margin. I want to be able to
> control things myself, so for example if I have a piece of music (in
> Musescore) with the Page Margins set to 10mm all around, then I want the
> PDF generated, and the sheet printed to have 10mm margins all round.

Oh, I hear you on this one!  I sometimes have to print PDF files and
it's infuriating when so many machines sabotage the quality by
shrinking the image.  If you're printing PDF files from convenience
stores, the only type of machine I've found that doesn't sabotage your
file are the Fuji-Xerox machines at 7-11's.  And even they have
recently put a productivity speed-bump in the way where you have to
choose between "sabotage file by shrinking it and generating larger
margin" and "print file without sabotaging it".  Presumably
non-neanderthals all choose not to have their documents sabotaged -
but at least they give you the choice.  At all other convenience
stores I've tried, there is no choice, and the only way I've found to
de-sabotage the mandatorily sabotaged file, is to undo the 97% print
(which is what seems to be happening) by then making a copy of the 97%
print with the copy machine set to 103% (which is hard to get right,
since you have to have the shrunken image centered on the glass -
requiring having the paper up and over the physical paper guides).

Incidentally, I seem to remember that some copy machines all the way
back in the early 1980's had a setting for making copies at 97%, which
was useful in cases where you were losing part of the document's edges
due the copy machine's inability to print on 100% of the page.

Now - as for *why* this is happening now....  At the convenience
stores, I find myself wondering if some middle-management scum came up
with the idea as a way of cutting toner costs and making more
Short-Term-Profits (G*d).....  Or maybe it's just due to people trying
to print photographs on 100% of the paper and the fix for that problem
is ruining everything else.

LHS