Linux: resizing Houdini window(s) hard/impossible

Forums Technical Discussion Linux: resizing Houdini window(s) hard/impossible

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danyargici: Member; 18 posts; Joined: March 2014; Offline

Sept. 1, 2022 4:58 a.m.

This is fantastic news, thanks Rob.


rf: Member; 24 posts; Joined: April 2011; Offline

Oct. 21, 2022 10:05 p.m.

Unfortunately this fix comes with severe side effects (pun not intended on this forum.)

Intermittent screen flicker makes it unusable.


jason_iversen: Member; 12429 posts; Joined: July 2005; Offline

Oct. 22, 2022 12:27 a.m.

Hi @Rob,

After trying the fix for several weeks, artists can't abide the flicker, and are back to being unable to resize the window. Is there any chance of your proper fix making it into 19.5? Another half a year or more of this is quite uncomfortable for us.

Thanks!
Jason

Jason Iversen, Technology Supervisor & FX Pipeline/R+D Lead @ Weta FX
also, http://www.odforce.net [www.odforce.net]


SWest: Member; 311 posts; Joined: Oct. 2016; Offline

Oct. 22, 2022 2:27 a.m.

Here’s my take on this. When using Debian11 with KDE or XFCE I’ve occasionally had trouble resizing some windows, for example Houdini or Zbrush (with Wine) directly using the mouse. Nevertheness, when right clicking the panel item for the window and choosing maximize/unmaximize and resize it has always been easy to control with the arrow keys or mouse. I think the keyboard hotkeys are alt+space (this is for XFCE).

Edit: Video demo added

Edited by SWest - Oct. 22, 2022 07:11:22

Attachments:
resize_window_Houdini_Debian_XFCE.mp4 (2.9 MB)

Interested in character concepts, modeling, rigging, and animation. Related tool dev with Py and VEX.


ajz3d: Member; 464 posts; Joined: Aug. 2014; Offline

Oct. 22, 2022 7:57 a.m.

SWest
when right clicking the panel item for the window and choosing maximize/unmaximize and resize it has always been easy to control with the arrow keys or mouse. I think the keyboard hotkeys are alt+space (this is for XFCE).

In XFCE you can also hold Super key (or whatever you have set for that purpose in "Window Manager Tweaks -> Accessibility") and click-and-hold RMB near one of the corners to scale a window that is under the cursor in any direction.

Edited by ajz3d - Oct. 22, 2022 07:57:51


rvinluan: Staff; 1255 posts; Joined: July 2005; Offline

Oct. 25, 2022 9:49 p.m.

jason_iversen
Hi @Rob,

After trying the fix for several weeks, artists can't abide the flicker, and are back to being unable to resize the window. Is there any chance of your proper fix making it into 19.5? Another half a year or more of this is quite uncomfortable for us.

Thanks!
Jason

Hi Jason,

I'll talk with our UI/UX team to see what can be done. The proper fix requires some architectural changes that I'm not sure can be backported safely enough to H19.5. But we'll look into it.

Hopefully though, one of the workarounds posted by SWest or ajz3d can help in the meantime.

Cheers,
Rob


jason_iversen: Member; 12429 posts; Joined: July 2005; Offline

Oct. 25, 2022 11:55 p.m.

Hi Rob, thanks for looking into it. Let us know if we need to muddle through.

In the meantime, I'm trying to help out one relatively common use case: resizing the main window over two screens. This doesn't help with the other dialogs in Houdini which is often too narrow, but maybe it's some relief. So a tool:

from Qt import QtWidgets

def get_main_window(widget=None):
    widget = widget or QtWidgets.QApplication.activeWindow()
    if widget is None:
        return
    parent = widget.parent()
    if parent is None:
        return widget
    return get_main_window(parent)

mainWindow = get_main_window()
mainWindow.move(0,0)
mainWindow.setFixedSize(1920*2, 1200)

Jason Iversen, Technology Supervisor & FX Pipeline/R+D Lead @ Weta FX
also, http://www.odforce.net [www.odforce.net]


danyargici: Member; 18 posts; Joined: March 2014; Offline

May 23, 2023 5:19 a.m.

Hi Rob.

This is still absolutely killing us here at ETC. To echo Jason, the flickery-ness of the fix was deemed to be worse that than the issue itself by the artists here (myself included).

Any update regarding this? Our move to Rocky has been delayed by Autodesk (*rolls eyes*) so unfortunately we are stuck with this a while longer.

Thanks.

Edited by danyargici - May 23, 2023 05:19:32


rvinluan: Staff; 1255 posts; Joined: July 2005; Offline

May 23, 2023 10:46 a.m.

Hello,

There's not much to update on the development side. I've been re-architecting things in Houdini to avoid the bug but there is no chance that I can backport the changes to Houdini 19.5.

However, Jason and company recently brought to my attention a workaround in KDE:
If we enable the SystemSettings->DesktopEffects resize window as fast-texture-scale, then it resizes without issues
Note that KDE removed the resize texture scale effect setting in 5.24 but from my understanding the Houdini window resize issues don't appear in newer KDE versions anyway.

Cheers,
Rob


danyargici: Member; 18 posts; Joined: March 2014; Offline

May 24, 2023 5:43 a.m.

I can confirm that this works. Many thanks Rob (special thanks also to Jason and crew for discovering!)

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