GTK: Add an option to hide window decorations when the window is maximized

[ansipunk]

I find window decorations useless when the window is maximized, so I'd like to hide them to preserve screen space, since I use tmux for multiplexing the terminal. Foot has an option for that and I imagine it wouldn't be too difficult to implement it here.

[ohmsl]

Could use
https://ghostty.org/docs/config/reference#window-decoration
if you want to always disable it

[ansipunk]

@ohmsl then I'd lose the ability to pull edges and corners of the window, move it around when it's not maximized and would have to use a keybinding to toggle. I think it could be improved.

[ohmsl]

Agreed, it should at least remove the window decorations when full screened, whether this needs to be an option I don't know but +1 from me

[ansipunk]

I'd be happy to continue using Foot, but I'd like to try out the new emulator. I love that it uses LibAdwaita to render its window decorations, as Foot, Alacritty and Kitty are really ugly at that. As far as I know, Foot is the only one that has a config option for hiding window decorations when maximized and the only one that supports incremental window resizing on Linux, however, it doesn't support font ligatures. It's fast as hell even without GPU acceleration and I'm really curious to see where Ghostty can take it.

Foot and Ghostty side by side:

Ghostty maximized:

Foot maximized:

[mitchellh]

I prefer a discussion for feature requests but I'm willing to accept this one on the spot. It's a good idea.

This should only apply to GTK. macOS already has its own hidden decorations when fullscreen (that appear when you hover the mouse up top).

[isgj]

IMO it should hide the decorations when it goes full-screen, not when the window is maximized.

[Pangoraw]

@ansipunk would something like #2568 help ? Maybe combined with auto-hiding decorations on fullscreen.

[ansipunk]

@Pangoraw thanks, I'll keep an eye on that discussion, it indeed does look great. But I still believe that hiding decorations on maximized windows is simply good UX.

[yorickpeterse]

The trick I was using was to use ghostty --gtk-titlebar=false as this would result in a basic GTK titlebar, which did get hidden when enabling fullscreen mode. It seems that per 1.0.1 this approach no longer works, as --gtk-titlebar=false completely removes the title bar on Gnome.

In my case I use Neovim in Ghostty in fullscreen mode, and not being able to hide the title bar in full screen mode is rather annoying due to the amount of space it takes up.

[Doom4535]

I might add that an auto hide type behavior would be nice (like how the Windows taskbar can be configured to disappear when the mouse isn't near it), as the GUI buttons are convenient, but for smaller (and lower res) screens real-estate is at a premium and the decorations bar takes up a good amount of space (or at least on my Ubuntu system). I am using the window-decoration = false setting currently to work around this, but sometimes miss the buttons.

[ansipunk]

Please do not confuse full screen and maximized windows.

[jcollie]

I'd say that the titlebar and windows should be automatically hidden when the window goes into fullscreen, not maximized. For maximized the decorations and titlebar would not change, only the window would be bigger.

[ansipunk]

@jcollie this issue was created specifically for hiding decorations in maximized windows. For full screen windows create another one.

[ak1932]

I think a better option would be to have auto hiding titlebar. The terminal Blackbox handles this pretty well. It hides the titlebar and when you move the cursor near the top it shows the titlebar. This way you don't have clutter as well as have resizable windows from corners, and a way to use the tab management ui that ghostty has.

[sergionexus]

@jcollie this issue was created specifically for hiding decorations in maximized windows. For full screen windows create another one.

I create another one and a subnormal deleted it. another good idea?

[jcollie]

@jcollie this issue was created specifically for hiding decorations in maximized windows. For full screen windows create another one.

That's not the way maximized/fullscreened windows work in most Gnome applications. Maximized windows keep the titlebar and decorations, fullscreened windows do not.

[pluiedev]

Please have basic courtesy when interacting with others in the issue tracker. No need to suddenly get hostile.

For the record, GNOME Console does not hide its header bar when maximized (see below, ignore the wonky font), which I think is default and expected behavior for GNOME/GTK apps.

I suspect the reason is that the header bar is sometimes used to place tabs, dropdown menus and other crucial UI elements. Disabling them when maximized will then make them inaccessible. (See GNOME Clocks as an example)

Not that I say we need to necessarily agree with everything GTK does, but we should at least give it more thought first.

[mitchellh]

Please remain civil and kind @ansipunk.

I still think this is a good idea as an option. And I understand its for maximized windows. I can understand the reasoning for wanting this and I also think it's a good sign that other programs such as Foot offer this.