Why a widget is as tall as what it shows

On Home, a widget used to be a box of a fixed size. A one-line summary sat in a box 160pt high, and no preset was shorter than that. Engine 1.7 turns this round: a widget whose view has a natural height is as tall as its content, and a height you set can only make it shorter. This page says why it works this way.

A box is never taller than its content

Empty space under a widget says nothing and hides the widget below it. So for a view that grows, the app draws min(content, cap), where the cap is the height you chose. size: auto means “no cap”. A board file that still says size: custom with h: 160 for a summary keeps working: 160 is now a cap, and the content is shorter.

Which views have a natural height is in the engine contract: a view carries grows: true (devmachine widgets schema --json). A clock, a gauge, a web page or a terminal has no such height, so it keeps its preset or the size you gave it.

The cap after a resize

When you drag a growing widget shorter, the stored height is the height drawn when you let go, so it is never above the content. If the drag ends within one snap (8pt) of the content, the app writes size: auto instead. That way a widget you pulled to “about its size” goes on following its content, and one you made clearly shorter stays shorter.

Why auto has no h

An h next to auto would be a number nobody keeps true: the content changes (a machine is added), and the file would be wrong at once. So the frame of an auto widget is {x, y, w}. An h written by hand is read and ignored, and the next write by the CLI or the app drops it. Without auto, the h is required, as before.

Pushing down is only on screen

When a widget grows, the ones below it move down so nothing is covered. That happens when the app draws: each widget is placed in the order of its stored y, and it is moved down only as far as needed to keep 8pt below the widgets above it. The stored y does not change, and nothing is ever pulled up. If it were written to the file, a machine added at noon would rewrite your layout, and a machine removed would leave a hole in it.

Why the CLI estimates

The CLI cannot measure what the app draws. To find a free spot for a new widget (widgets add without --at), it counts an auto widget at the height of its default_size (160pt for a widget written in the board). This is a guess, and it is made on purpose: a guess that keeps new widgets apart is enough, the app draws the real height, and --at places a widget exactly where you say.

What the CLI checks

A growing view has no least height on Home, only a least width (the width of the smallest preset it takes), so the CLI refuses a frame that is too narrow with “frame width … is narrower than …”. A view that does not grow keeps both limits. See the widget format for the rules, and troubleshooting for the messages.