1/3 RU adjustments

[Jajola]

Problem

I love Count Rackula, especially the Banana for scale!?

It'd be really useful to be able to fine tune adjust things in 1/3 RU increments rather than 1/2 RU, as most (all i've ever worked on) racks have 3x holes per RU.

Proposed solution

Shift + Up / Down should bump in 1/3rd RU increments, or be a custom preference to toggle between 1/3 & 1/2 (though I still don't see how a half RU works in the first place!)

Alternatives considered

Not sticking things 1/3rd of a RU out, or not full RU height cable management things (& buying bigger racks I guess...)

How important is this to you?

Would significantly improve my workflow

[ggfevans]

LOL I just realized how silly 1/2 U is. You are totally right! it is (atleast on my rack) 3 holes per U so a 1/2 U would somehow be like a magical hole drilled between them. That's funny, I had not even realized that until now. Thanks for pointing this out 🤦

[Jajola]

No worries dude!

I checked & you can get 1/2 height stuff but it’s mainly brush strips or cable management things.

Perhaps both are needed, but the 1/3 bump would be mega!

Cheers,

JJ

[ggfevans]

yeah, I think 1/2 U devices are a thing: though that is a bit different than moving a 1U device by 1/2U which in most racks is technically impossible. I think I could consider either a per-rack setting, because to me that would be depending on the rack. Most racks, as you said, are going to be 1/3U units though so it would default to that. Orrr I could just say fuck it and drop the 1/2U concept, I think that might risk breaking backward compatibility so I'll go with the former.

Thanks for submitting these!
Cheers
Gareth

[Jajola]

Totally makes sense to keep the 1/2 for compatibility & 1/2 height devices / accessories, and then maybe bump just defaults to 1/3 when using the shift…

Nice one Gareth!

[ggfevans]

Implementation Plan

Thanks for the feature request! I've created a design and broken it into implementation issues:

1. Core Position System: 1/6U Internal Units #633 - Core Position System: 1/6U Internal Units (foundation)
2. Migration: Auto-convert legacy positions on load #634 - Migration: Auto-convert legacy positions on load
3. Keyboard: Change Shift+Arrow to 1/3U movement #635 - Keyboard: Change Shift+Arrow to 1/3U movement
4. UI: Position formatting with fraction glyphs #636 - UI: Position formatting with fraction glyphs

Design document: 2026-01-14-third-ru-positioning-design.md

[ggfevans]

this was implemented in v0.7.0 - thanks again for catching it @Jajola