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Allow user to specify the number of rows or columns to increase or decrease by when resizing pane via keyboard. #17843
Description
Description of the new feature/enhancement
When resizing panes via keyboard, it would be nice to specify the resize amount. Right now, when you resize the pane, the amount is different depending on pane width, window width, etc. Can we have the ability to resize by X columns or rows (depending on resize direction)?
Proposed technical implementation details (optional)
In the keyboard settings, when assigning a keyboard shortcut for pane resizing, allow a second integer value specifying the number of columns or rows to resize by.
If the user specifies the value 2 for the resize pane action, then if they grow or shrink the pane, it will increase or decrease by 2 rows or columns depending on direction.
Activity
[-]Allow user to specify the number of rows or columns to increase or decrease by.[/-][+]Allow user to specify the number of rows or columns to increase or decrease by when resizing pane via keyboard.[/+]carlos-zamora commentedon Sep 25, 2024
Thanks for filing! Yeah, this seems like something we could add in as an action arg for the resize pane action.
freddiehaddad commentedon Sep 26, 2024
Carlos Zamora (@carlos-zamora) If you think this could be a good first ticket for me and you have some cycles to provide guidance, I can work on it.
carlos-zamora commentedon Sep 26, 2024
Sure! I can help a bit. Here's a writeup of what needs to be done. Hope it helps 🙂
src/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModelchangesResizePaneArgsResizePaneArgs::GenerateNameis used to generate the name for the command palette.RS_()is how we retrieve the localized string from Resources.resw. Be sure to add any new entries to the resw file located inTerminalSettingsModelsrc/cascadia/TerminalAppchangesWindowsTerminal: handles the windowing and WM events (you'll definitely avoid touching this area)TerminalControl: handles the actual terminal content (i.e. input handling, search box, etc.). But mainly XAML and UI.TerminalCorelayer that's beneathTerminalControl. This handles most of the non-UI terminal related things (i.e. rendering, terminal APIs, text buffer contents, etc.). You probably won't have to touch this, but it's good to know. This has knowledge of the buffer size, so if that's something you end up needing, now you know where to find it.TerminalApphandles things like tabs, panes (!!), the command palette, etc. App-wide things.AppActionhandlers.cpp:_HandleResizePane()is where we handle the action event. TheResizePaneArgsis the same one you touched inTerminalSettingsModel, so you should be able to access the new property here and do whatever you need to do.Pane.h/cpp: This is where the resize actually happens, so you'll probably have to make some changes here.References:
useCommandlineproperty to the suggestions action #15027: This is a relatively recent PR that adds an action arg. You'll want to mainly take a look atsrc/cascadia/TerminalSettingsModelandsrc/cascadia/TerminalAppfreddiehaddad commentedon Sep 27, 2024
After a few minutes looking through the code, I see the default behavior is to resize the pane in 5% increments based on the focused pane's dimensions. This explains the peculiar resize behavior (i.e. 5% of 500px pane vs 5% of a 1000px pane).
Questions:
carlos-zamora commentedon Sep 27, 2024
Hmm, looks like
Pane::_CreateRowColDefinitions()uses_desiredSplitPositionto determine where the split is (in percentage units). So, I guess if you can figure out a way to update that appropriately, yeah. You'd have to use the font size to figure out how much a row/column is and update that appropriately?📝 Keep in mind, different terminals/panes may be using different font sizes (though I think you'll be fine; you'll just have to retrieve the font dimensions from the current pane/terminal and use that).
Looks like the font dimensions are exposed on
TermControl::CharacterDimensions(check the units on that). So you'll have to go from Pane -->IPaneContent(check that it's aTerminalPaneContent) -->TermControl.📝 Hmm... if the current pane isn't a terminal, what should we do to resize? I think it would still be good to resize as opposed to just preventing the action from happening, but it'll probably be something to play with to see how it feels "right".
Oh totally. I have a personal dislike for pixels as a unit though haha. Maybe percentage? That would avoid all of the extra work I mentioned above, and you'd really just modify the
amountvariable inPane::_Resize(). I imagine that would solve your feature request adequately too.Oh, I also found this PR: #16895. Seems pretty relevant to you 🙂.