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xlog when working as expected, outside of the Unity environment

I'm the newly appointed application maintainer for a program called "xlog". The program works fine in all but the Unity environment. It is written using Gtk2.

I've never previously used Unity. I noticed in Unity that the menu bar seems to be "redirected" to another place outside of my application GUI, to a bar at the top of the screen. Secondly, one of the text entry boxes in my GUI is displayed as a thin line, unaccessible to the user except via the tab key.xlog in unity - note the missing menu bar, and the remarks box isn't a box.

If I take the xlog executable that works perfectly under Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS and copy it to a 12.10 Unity distribution, I see the different behavior.

I haven't a clue where to look, or what I should consider modifying, in the xlog application, to remedy this situation. What's different in Unity that is unique to all other environments where this application works properly?

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  • It may be advantageous to upload a couple of screenshots to highlight the issue.
    – Oli
    Mar 30, 2013 at 22:28
  • Oli: It isn't obvious to me how to upload the screenshots. This is my first time using this website. Mar 30, 2013 at 22:34
  • Click the edit link, click the place in the post you would like the image to appear and then click the little icon in the toolbar that reads img. A pop-in should appear. Follow the prompts.
    – Oli
    Mar 30, 2013 at 22:36
  • I tried that, Oli, but it says I need "10 reputation" to post images. Mar 30, 2013 at 22:40

1 Answer 1

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I noticed in Unity that the menu bar seems to be "redirected" to another place outside of my application GUI, to a bar at the top of the screen.

I think what you are refering is the default behavior on Unity. Unity uses a global menu (the one you see at the top) similar to what is seen on OSX.

Unity app menu in action.

If you want this can be disabled in your application, but I think that is not very recommended: anyone using Unity will expect the menu not on the window, but at the top.

Regarding the entry box I would guess that it may be a problem with the Ubuntu theme. To check it try to change the Ubuntu theme (under "System Settings" -> "Appearance") and see if the box stays the same.

Edit

I was curious and looking at the code it seems that the problem is in your application.This seems to fix the issue (I can't enter a newline on that box, but I can't say if this is normal or a bug). Those values (100, 200) were selected randomly so this may not be the best way to solve that.

enter image description here

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  • Thanks, Salem. With the "High Contrast" theme, the Remarks box is displayed properly. With the default Ambience theme, the Remarks box is not correctly displayed. Mar 30, 2013 at 22:45
  • @AndyStewart see my edit.
    – Salem
    Mar 30, 2013 at 23:30
  • Salem, I tried it locally and I see the differently sized remarks box. I put the executable into my Virtual Box version of Ubuntu with Unity, and see that now the remarks box is behaving as expected. I'll look at the inability to enter a <cr> - that behavior exists prior to your suggested modification. Thank yoU!!! You've been very helpful. 73 de Andy KB1OIQ Mar 30, 2013 at 23:50
  • I just released xlog 2.0.7 with this fix. Thanks, Salem, for your help! Mar 31, 2013 at 0:47

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