Bug#361581: gnome-terminal: opening a new tab in vert. resized term causes slang, ncurses apps to misbehave

[Juraj Ziegler]

Package: gnome-terminal
Version: 2.14.0-1
Severity: normal


Consider the following course of actions:
1. run gnome-terminal
2. maximize it vertically
3. open new tab
4. open another tab
5. run a "full-screen" terminal application in the latest (3rd) tab.

Application started in step 5 looks distorted, unusable. Though it does work,
it is no use, as most of the screen is empty. ctrl-l causes a failed re-draw,
the bottom line appears on top. What helps is: 
a) Menu Terminal/Reset, then ctrl-l
b) Menu Terminal/Reset and Clear, then ctrl-l
c) quit application, resize the terminal window in any way, application again
d) quit application, run "reset" in shell, start application again

Applications tested are "mc" (linked against libslang), "vim" (linked against
libncurses). Tabs are displayed on top side of the terminal window.
 It is a bit hard to reproduce and pin-point. I usually have ma terminals
maximized vertically 80x47 with tabs, 80x49 without tabs. Maximalization
is done before opening 2nd and subsequent tabs. While doing research for
this report, this problem only appeared in 3rd and further tabs in such
windows. For a default 80x24 terminal, the problem does not appear. In
artificial situations (sizes I don't usually use), it behaves like this:
* 81x24 - no problem, in any tab
* 80x25 - problem in 2nd tab already (and further tabs)
* fully maximized (125x49 / 125x47) - problem in 3rd and further tabs
* experimentally, I found the 2nd tab bad / 2nd tab OK decision point to be   47/48 lines in the terminal area, before creating the 2nd tab and running mc
  in it

The first tab is always OK, even if I do: 1. gnome-terminal
2. vertical resize
3. new tab
4. select 1st tab
5. mc

If I only have one tab open, i.e. no tabs are displayed actually, it behaves
correctly of course.

For the record, I use metacity as my wm, package version 2.14.1-1:
$ dpkg -l |grep metacity
ii  libmetacity0                       2.14.1-1
ii  metacity                           2.14.1-1
ii  metacity-common                    2.14.1-1
(deleted last column in editor for brevity)

This did not happen with version 2.12.something of gnome-terminal and
metacity. A difference in behaviour I remember is, in version 2.12,
when gnome-terminal created the tabs, the gnome-terminal window grew
(bottom becoming off-screen), so I had to resize it vertically again. This probably ensured I don't get to see the problem. Now, in version 2.14,
the gnome-terminal window stays the same size (all on screen) and the
terminal area loses 2 lines (in my case; it depends on widget and font
sizes, how many lines are lost).

I'm not an expert on the corresponding signals, but it seems a signal
announcing change in window-size is sometimes not delivered to the terminal.
 This could be a metacity issue. In that case, please re-assign and my
apologies.


Regards,
Juraj Ziegler


-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.15.4-next
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=sk_SK.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)

Versions of packages gnome-terminal depends on:
ii  gnome-control-center      1:2.12.3-2     utilities to configure the GNOME d
ii  gnome-terminal-data       2.14.0-1       Data files for the GNOME terminal 
ii  libatk1.0-0               1.11.4-1       The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0              2.14.0-1       Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libc6                     2.3.6-5        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4               2.14.0-1       GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0               1:2.5.1-2      library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.10.1-2       The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0               2.14.0-2       The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomeui-0              2.14.0-1       The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0            2.14.0-2       GNOME virtual file-system (runtime
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.8.16-1       The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  liborbit2                 1:2.14.0-1     libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0             1.12.0-2       Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                  1.7-5          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.8-1          library for program launch feedbac
ii  libvte4                   1:0.12.0-1     Terminal emulator widget for GTK+ 
ii  libx11-6                  6.9.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxrender1               1:0.9.0.2-1    X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  scrollkeeper              0.3.14-10      A free electronic cataloging syste

Versions of packages gnome-terminal recommends:
ii  yelp                          2.12.2-4   Help browser for GNOME 2

-- no debconf information