Music / iTunes MiniPlayer icon is much too large in v7.4

[DisasterAreaDesigns]

Describe the bug

In v6 and below, the MiniPlayer was much smaller, but now it's gotten huge in the app switcher.

Screenshots / video

v6.73.0 behaviour:

v7.4.0 behaviour:

Steps to reproduce the bug

Use AltTab with Music / iTunes active and the Music set to Window... MiniPlayer

Your environment

• AltTab version: 7.4.0
• macOS version: 15.1.1

[lwouis]

Thank you for sharing this issue

Could you please share the resolution of your screen? Also, the dimensions of the miniplayer window?

Thank you 🙇

[DisasterAreaDesigns]

3440 x 1440 on this machine, which is a Mac Mini connected to an LG monitor, but the same issue occurs on all of my Retina MacBook Pros regardless of the DPI setting.

[lwouis]

Thank you @DisasterAreaDesigns

3440 x 1440 is the resolution of the screen on which you took the screenshot above?

Could you please share the dimensions of the miniplayer window on the monitor as well?

Thank you

[DisasterAreaDesigns]

Sure thing. Miniplayer is 298 x 91px.

In 6.73 it's the same size in the switcher, 298 x 91:

In 7.4.0 it's much larger, 705 x 219px

[lwouis]

Thank you for the great screenshots!

This makes me realize that we should probably not have thumbnails bigger than their actual windows. Note that it's a separate problem from the width being so wide. I've opened a ticket for that second topic: #3902

[lwouis]

Hey,

The default values for min/max thumbnail width used to be 15/30% for every version before v7. This leads me to think that you have customized it in the past, using the sliders available before v7.

Could you please run this command in Terminal.app?

defaults read com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos windowMaxWidthInRow

Thank you 🙇

[lwouis]

Hi,

I found time to work on this today. Here are some reference values:

30%	20%	Windows 11 (29%)

Windows 11 has wide thumbnails as well. I suspect they have the same max value as us: 30%

If the best UX people at Microsoft have picked 30% for their huge user base, it's probably good enough for us. I think we will stick to it.

I think the main issue we see on your screenshot is the fact that a window thumbnail is bigger than the window itself. It creates a very weird, ugly, zoomed in thumbnails.

I'll close this ticket, and we'll implement the fix for #3902. That should provide a good experience 👍

Thank you

/cc @Allsochen

[lwouis]

@Allsochen sharing another interesting UX thing. I'm adding unit-test to your heuristics method to calculate min/max width for thumbnails.

Here are the value the method generates for a variety of monitors:

("11\" Laptop: MacBook Air 11\": HD", 1366, 768, (0.13, 0.28)),
("13\" Laptop: MacBook Air 13\": WXGA+", 1440, 900, (0.15, 0.30)
("14\" Laptop: MacBook Pro 14\": 3K", 3024, 1964, (0.16, 0.30)),
("15\" Laptop: MacBook Pro 15\": QXGA", 2880, 1800, (0.15, 0.30)
("16\" Laptop: MacBook Pro 16\": 3.5K", 3456, 2234, (0.16, 0.30)
("19\" Monitor: Apple Studio Display 19\": HD", 1440, 900, (0.14
("20\" Monitor: Apple Cinema Display 20\": WSXGA+", 1680, 1050, 
("21\" Monitor: LG 21:9 UltraWide: UWHD", 2560, 1080, (0.09, 0.2
("22\" Monitor: ASUS 22\" Full HD: Full HD", 1920, 1080, (0.13, 
("24\" Monitor: Dell P2419H: Full HD", 1920, 1080, (0.13, 0.28))
("27\" Monitor: LG 27UK850-W: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("30\" Monitor: BenQ PD3200U: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("32\" Monitor: BenQ EW3270U: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("34\" UltraWide Monitor: LG 34UC79G-B: UWHD", 2560, 1080, (0.09
("34\" UltraWide Monitor: LG 34WN80C-B: UWQHD", 3440, 1440, (0.0
("32\" TV: Samsung UE32T5300: Full HD", 1920, 1080, (0.13, 0.28)
("40\" TV: Samsung Q60B: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("43\" TV: LG 43UN7300: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("50\" TV: Samsung TU8000: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28)),
("55\" TV: LG OLED55CXPUA: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.29)),
("60\" TV: Vizio 60-inch 4K: 4K", 3840, 2160, (0.13, 0.28))

Here are the unique values it outputs, with the input resolutions:

(0.09, 0.21) UWHD, UWQHD
(0.13, 0.28) HD, Full HD, 4K
(0.13, 0.29) Full HD, 4K
(0.14, 0.30) HD, WSXGA+
(0.15, 0.30) WXGA+, QXGA
(0.16, 0.30) 3K, 3.5K

I wonder if this percentage approach still makes sense now that we have the comfortableWidth method which decides the max width of the whole switcher, based on physical screen width.

Perhaps we should base maxThumbnailsWidth()/maxThumbnailsHeight() instead of screen.width/screen.height. That would take into account the switcher frame, instead of the whole screen 💡

[DisasterAreaDesigns]

Hey,

The default values for min/max thumbnail width used to be 15/30% for every version before v7. This leads me to think that you have customized it in the past, using the sliders available before v7.

Could you please run this command in Terminal.app?

defaults read com.lwouis.alt-tab-macos windowMaxWidthInRow

Thank you 🙇

Showing 30. To my knowledge I didn't change anything in the sliders, and the same thing happens on three different machines. I see this is closed, hoping you found the issue.