Xfce Forum

Citizen Snips

Member

Registered: 2020-05-06

Posts: 30

sensitivity of window border grabbing in XFCE 4.12.1

I am logged into two different machines that are each running XFCE 4.12.1 per what is returned when I run "xfce4-panel --version".  In one of these desktop environments, grabbing the edge or corner of a window to resize it is extremely difficult as the width of the region where the mouse pointer icon changes to a resize arrow is extremely narrow.  In the other desktop environment, the width of this region seems to be wider, making it much easier to resize windows by clicking and dragging the border or corner.  Is this a configurable setting?  I searched online and looked through various menus but couldn't find it.

When using the machine that has the hard-to-grab window borders/corners, I am able to somewhat work around the issue by holding down ALT and then right click, which allows me to resize a window by moving the mouse pointer as long as it is within a window.  When I am using the machine that has the wider border/edge detection regions, this trick doesn't work at all.  Holding ALT and then right clicking while the mouse pointer is inside a window instead brings up a context menu ("Open Terminal", "Open Tab", "Copy", "Paste", etc.).  Do I need to enable the "ALT+right click to resize window" option somewhere?

denyer

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2018-10-20

Posts: 63

Website

Re: sensitivity of window border grabbing in XFCE 4.12.1

I'm assuming one machine has one theme and the other has another, or you can tell a difference between the windows by how pronounced the shadow effect (if any) is?

This has been a common issue for years and is a bit more complicated than it initially looks. With Xfwm4 it depends on theme and toolkits because the developer who wrote the window management didn't want to depend on a compositor to allow grab areas beyond the window frame -- that's how window managers in other desktop environments deal with the issue. Traditionally the solution is to choose a theme with a larger border (I used to like 4deb for a retro look) or it's possible to replace the window manger component with one from MATE or Plasma since Xfce is very modular.

As a consequence, developers are throwing out use of some Xfwm4 functionality in 4.16 and emphasising used of CSD windows with headerbars rather than traditional titlebar SSD ones, using GTK3, which has annoyed a lot of users and particularly anyone who was using Xfwm4 themes (which stop working on CSD windows) or relying on functionality like vertical maximising of windows or shading.

My suggestion would be either replace the window manager or give another DE a try. I've been mostly using Plasma this year.

Citizen Snips

Member

Registered: 2020-05-06

Posts: 30

Re: sensitivity of window border grabbing in XFCE 4.12.1

The machine that has the easy-to-grab window borders/corners is using Daloa for its theme and Adwaita-dark for its Style.  The machine that is using the hard-to-grab window borders/corners is using Greybird-Light for both theme and style.  Changing this machine to Daloa and Adwaita-dark does make the window borders/corners easy to grab, which is consistent with the other machine. 

The only inconsistency is that for the first machine, holding down ALT and then right clicking while the mouse pointer is inside a window brings up a context menu ("Open Terminal", "Open Tab", "Copy", "Paste", etc.), whereas doing this on the second machine allows me to resize the window.  How do I make this behavior consistent?

MrEen

Member

Registered: 2019-04-19

Posts: 295

Re: sensitivity of window border grabbing in XFCE 4.12.1

Just a guess, but Settings > Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility tab doesn't have Alt selected for "Key used to grab and move windows" on the first machine.

Citizen Snips

Member

Registered: 2020-05-06

Posts: 30

Re: sensitivity of window border grabbing in XFCE 4.12.1

Just a guess, but Settings > Window Manager Tweaks > Accessibility tab doesn't have Alt selected for "Key used to grab and move windows" on the first machine.

This was set to ALT on both machines.

It turns out the problem is related to Exceed onDemand, the client I am using to connect to the remote machine.  For some reason only the right ALT key works within the remote machine; the left ALT key does nothing (or at least nothing that I can see).

Last edited by Citizen Snips (2021-03-19 03:09:23)