Setting the Size

Documentation / Contents - Dock Area

• Overview of Desktop Breathing Space
  • What the Zone Is For
  • The Controls
• Choosing an Edge
• Setting the Size
  • The Fifty Percent Limit
• Reading the Preview
  • The Hazard Stripes
  • The Five Windows
• Applying the Change
• When the Toolchest Owns the Zone
• From the Command Line
• Where the Settings Live
• Copyright Information

Setting the Size

The row labelled "How much:" holds a thumbwheel and a readout. Drag the wheel and the readout follows, reading for example "37% reserved".

The number is a percentage of the screen dimension the zone eats into: of the screen's HEIGHT for a top or bottom band, of its WIDTH for a left or right one. So twenty percent on a 1280 by 1024 screen is a 204 pixel band across the bottom, or a 256 pixel band down the side.

Using the Wheel

One comfortable swipe across the wheel covers the whole range. The wheel is set to a full turn over its range for exactly that reason: with the narrower default arc, moving from nothing to the maximum took about two and a half wheel widths of dragging, and dragging across the wheel barely moved it, which reads as a control that does not work.

The readout is live while you drag, and so is the preview. See Reading the Preview.

The Fifty Percent Limit

The zone stops at half the screen. That is not a taste call: past a half, the "reserved strip" is the larger part and the windows are the strip.

The limit is enforced in three places at once, so they cannot disagree: the wheel will not go past it, a value typed on the command line is refused, and the window manager clamps whatever it is given.

Zero

Zero reserves nothing, exactly as though the edge were None. The difference is that the edge is remembered, so winding the wheel back up restores the band you had.

Picking a Number

Start from what you want to fit in the band and work back.

• A row of minimized icons wants enough height for the icon and its label. On a 1024 high screen that is a few percent, not ten.
• The Toolchest down the left wants roughly its own width.
• If you are reserving space simply so the desktop does not feel sealed shut, five to ten percent is plenty.

Watch the preview while you dial: the five tiled windows shrink as the band grows, and the point where they stop looking usable is your upper bound.

See Applying the Change when you are happy with it.