Display open windows vertically ['Grouped window list'] - Mint 20.1 Cinnamon [Solved]

[cday]

In Mint 19 Cinnamon I discovered a way of displaying open windows vertically, rather than separately along the panel, but can't see how to select that option in 20.1.

I like to keep a number of folders open, and often have ten or more LibreOffice Writer documents open, and found the vertical arrangement made it much easier to select the folder or document I needed quickly.

[spamegg]

Not really sure what you mean by "displaying windows vertically", can you include some screenshots to show us what you mean?

[cday]

Not really sure what you mean by "displaying windows vertically", can you include some screenshots to show us what you mean?

Yes, I struggled a bit trying to explain that:

With the default settings each open folder has an icon on the panel, the setting which I discovered quite late in my use of 19.1 displayed open folders (or LibreOffice documents) stacked vertically when I hovered the mouse over the corresponding panel icon.

I found it much easier to select the one I wanted when moving the mouse vertically than when moving it a long way horizontally....


Edit: Can you suggest a better title?

[spamegg]

Do you mean like this?

[spamegg]

Mint 20.1 Cinnamon:
Menu/Applets/Grouped Window List/General: "Group windows by application"
Menu/Applets/Grouped Window List/Thumbnails: "Show thumbnails" and "Enable vertical thumbnails"

[cday]

That's it, thanks, but when I select Menu/Applets/Grouped Window List it's locked... ??

[spamegg]

There is a "gear" icon to reach the settings on the right.

[cday]

There is a "gear" icon to reach the settings on the right.

The problem was more basic, the applet wasn't installed...

I think it was installed by default in Mint 19, although I can't be sure and am not really familiar with applets.

Thanks for your patience, I must think about making a small donation to Mint in the hope that more documentation can be produced.

[spamegg]

Grouped Window List is a default part of Cinnamon. It comes with default installation of Mint from the ISO. I'm not sure what was going on with your installation.

[cday]

Grouped Window List is a default part of Cinnamon. It comes with default installation of Mint from the ISO. I'm not sure what was going on with your installation.

Agreed!

When I opened applets I received a notification about missing(?) applets and took up an offer to update the list which added more, if that could be relevant. The fact that I installed the applet, as it seemed not to be installed, may relate to my current problem:

When I followed the above instructions for enabling grouped windows, I didn't immediately get the result I expected. So puzzled I carried on trying things, and I now have standard icons at the left of the panel and also grouped icons at the right side. Deleting an icon on the left also deletes the corresponding icon on the right.

So seemingly two instances running, but I can't identify a duplicated process in System Monitor although that is not a place I visit very often.

Ideas?

[spamegg]

Your system seems messed up.
Please give us information about your install by entering this command in a terminal:

Code: Select all

inxi -Fxpmrz

Click </> from the mini toolbar above the textbox where you type your reply
and then place your cursor between the code markers and paste the results of the
command between the code markers like this: [code]Results[/code].

[cday]

I did a clean install yesterday, glad to be back in Mint following a few weeks in W10 after Mint got broken on my second dual-boot laptop. I lost Mint on the first laptop after a bad update, I think, and the second laptop after I ran out of memory and couldn't recover using Timeshift. Small SSD drives.

If necessary I can roll back to yesterday after the install, though, as lots of settings aren't right yet but that would be longer.

Code: Select all

chris@chris-Swift-SF113-31:~$ inxi -Fxpmrz
System:
  Kernel: 5.4.0-74-generic x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 9.3.0 
  Desktop: Cinnamon 4.8.6 Distro: Linux Mint 20.1 Ulyssa 
  base: Ubuntu 20.04 focal 
Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: Acer product: Swift SF113-31 v: V1.05 
  serial: <filter> 
  Mobo: APL model: ASAHI_AP v: V1.05 serial: <filter> UEFI: INSYDE v: 1.05 
  date: 05/10/2017 
Battery:
  ID-1: BAT0 charge: 42.1 Wh condition: 42.1/43.0 Wh (98%) model: AP16A4K 
  status: Discharging 
Memory:
  RAM: total: 3.69 GiB used: 1.96 GiB (53.2%) 
  RAM Report: 
  permissions: Unable to run dmidecode. Root privileges required. 
CPU:
  Topology: Quad Core model: Intel Pentium N4200 bits: 64 type: MCP 
  arch: Goldmont rev: 9 L2 cache: 1024 KiB 
  flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 8755 
  Speed: 895 MHz min/max: 800/2500 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 896 2: 895 
  3: 896 4: 895 
Graphics:
  Device-1: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Integrated 
  Graphics 
  vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: i915 v: kernel bus ID: 00:02.0 
  Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.9 driver: modesetting unloaded: fbdev,vesa 
  resolution: 1920x1080~60Hz 
  OpenGL: renderer: Mesa Intel HD Graphics 505 (APL 3) v: 4.6 Mesa 20.2.6 
  direct render: Yes 
Audio:
  Device-1: Intel Celeron N3350/Pentium N4200/Atom E3900 Series Audio Cluster vendor: Acer Incorporated ALI driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel 
  bus ID: 00:0e.0 
  Sound Server: ALSA v: k5.4.0-74-generic 
Network:
  Device-1: Intel Wireless 7265 driver: iwlwifi v: kernel port: 1040 
  bus ID: 02:00.0 
  IF: wlp2s0 state: up mac: <filter> 
Drives:
  Local Storage: total: 133.68 GiB used: 17.85 GiB (13.4%) 
  ID-1: /dev/sda vendor: Kingston model: RBUSNS8180DS3128GH size: 119.24 GiB 
  ID-2: /dev/sdb type: USB vendor: Toshiba model: KIOXIA TransMemory 
  size: 14.44 GiB 
Partition:
  ID-1: / size: 73.85 GiB used: 17.57 GiB (23.8%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda5 
  ID-2: /boot/efi size: 96.0 MiB used: 32.9 MiB (34.3%) fs: vfat 
  dev: /dev/sda2 
  ID-3: /media/chris/USB ACCESS size: 14.42 GiB used: 253.2 MiB (1.7%) 
  fs: vfat dev: /dev/sdb1 
  ID-4: /run/timeshift/backup raw size: 75.54 GiB 
  size: <superuser/root required> used: <superuser/root required> fs: ext4 
  dev: /dev/sda5 
Sensors:
  System Temperatures: cpu: 33.0 C mobo: 0.0 C 
  Fan Speeds (RPM): N/A 
Repos:
  No active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list 
  Active apt repos in: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/official-package-repositories.list 
  1: deb http://packages.linuxmint.com ulyssa main upstream import backport #id:linuxmint_main
  2: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal main restricted universe multiverse
  3: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates main restricted universe multiverse
  4: deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports main restricted universe multiverse
  5: deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ focal-security main restricted universe multiverse
  6: deb http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu/ focal partner
Info:
  Processes: 269 Uptime: 1h 52m Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Compilers: 
  gcc: 9.3.0 Shell: bash v: 5.0.17 inxi: 3.0.38 
chris@chris-Swift-SF113-31:~$ 

[spamegg]

It all seems fine. That's weird, if you did a clean install just yesterday then there should not be a problem. I'm not sure what to suggest. Make sure to verify the ISO file. You can do a fresh install and apply all the updates, see if the problem repeats. Then you can make a bug report. But if that's too much work then maybe don't.

[cday]

I did verify the ISO download, the checksum but not the source which was a mirror linked form the Mint site.

Unless someone comes up with an idea meanwhile, I'll probably rollback tomorrow and avoid the offer to update the applets, or whatever the offer was, in case that was relevant, maybe the issue was actually something else. Thanks for trying...

[cday]

I have now rolled back to the snapshot created soon after I made a clean install a couple of days ago.

Surprised that my settings made since installation are restored, that is unexpected and is useful.

But everything I open is still displayed twice on the panel, once ungrouped and once grouped, which is what I want.

Any ideas for a quick, and not too technical fix, otherwise I'll have to make a second clean install and repeat setting everything up

[spamegg]

But everything I open is still displayed twice on the panel, once ungrouped and once grouped, which is what I want.

I'm really confused by this. Can you show some separate screenshots of what you have, and what you want to have?

[cday]

But everything I open is still displayed twice on the panel, once ungrouped and once grouped, which is what I want.

I'm really confused by this. Can you show some separate screenshots of what you have, and what you want to have?

Here's a screenshot of a demonstration setup:

I would certainly be interested in any thoughts you have, but in the absence of a simple and reliable fix, I'm expecting now to do another clean installation as I don't want to start 20.1 with an install that might have underlying problems.

[spamegg]

I'm still totally confused.
Is this the picture of a single panel (with the Menu uncharacteristically in the middle)
or two pictures put together, where the left half is what you currently have, and the right half is what you want to have?

[cday]

Is this the picture of a single panel (with the Menu uncharacteristically in the middle)
or two pictures put together, where the left half is what you currently have, and the right half is what you want to have?

It is exactly what I see after changing the background colour to grey for increased clarity, and then configuring the displayed icons for best illustrative effect.

So two instances, one left-aligned without grouped windows, the other right-aligned with grouped windows...

I ran a live session yesterday and was able to set up grouped windows easily using the instructions you originally provided, everything was as expected.

I continue to suspect that when I went originally went to Applets to set up 'Grouped window list' and was offered I think a download of additional applets, then found I that I needed to install 'Grouped window list' in order to continue, that could have left an existing instance running, and I created a second instance.

So maybe a simple fix like killing a running process, otherwise a clean installation ignoring any offer relating to adding additional applets!

[spamegg]

OK I guess you have some duplication going on. A clean install should fix the issue then.