47

When you want to resize a window in gnome (as well as in other systems) you can click-and-hold at the window's border and than drag it. The problem is (and do correct me if I'm wrong here) that the draggable border is just a couple of pixels thick in gnome. That tends to be a little frustrating, and contributes to my wrist pains from using the mouse, as it requires very careful movement of the mouse.

How can I change the thickness of the area I can click in order to resize a window? I don't want to increase the appearance of the window border, I'm not talking about eye candy here. I want to fine tune this functionality where I can resize a window by dragging its border.

Is there a setting somewhere that will change this?

Braiam
  • 67,791
  • 32
  • 179
  • 269
Malabarba
  • 10,196
  • I admit I had not seen those questions. However, they both involve themes. I would like to change the functionality without affecting the appearance. – Malabarba Oct 20 '10 at 16:00
  • Sorry, I didn't realize the comments before I post my answer. You may totally forget about my answer if this post should be moved, deleted etc. – marenostrum Oct 20 '10 at 16:02
  • 3
    @Bruce: The solution of using alt + middle-click doesn't involve changing appearance. It's not strictly changing the border width, but it solves the same problem. In fact, it gives you a much wider area (the whole window) than you would get by changing the border width. – Matthew Oct 20 '10 at 16:32
  • 2
    @Matthew: you need 2 hands free for that though... ;) – JanC Oct 20 '10 at 17:28
  • 2
    @JanC: Or a spare button on your mouse you can rebind the shortcut to. –  Oct 20 '10 at 17:42
  • Related: Increase Resize Margin On Windows –  Oct 20 '10 at 18:08
  • @JanC: I agree that it isn't ideal, but at least it's a solution that doesn't involve changing appearance :) – Matthew Oct 20 '10 at 18:16

3 Answers3

24

Change the following parameters in the appropriate Metacity XML file.

Ambiance's theme is located in /usr/share/themes/Ambiance/metacity-1/metacity-theme-1.xml

The folowing parameters change the width of the borders and consequently the width of the re-size area:

"<distance name="left_width" value="1"/>"
"<distance name="right_width" value="1"/>"
"<distance name="bottom_height" value="1"/>"

By default they are set to "1", but I found that changing them to "4" doesn't change the appearance very drastically, but makes it very much easier to re-size using the mouse.

  • 7
    To reload the theme without logging out you can run the command: metacity-message reload-theme – gacrux Jul 30 '12 at 21:37
  • 1
    If only I had root access to my computer... – Seppo Enarvi Nov 15 '13 at 14:01
  • thank you SO much @pgwulfing this is FINALLY the answer I've been looking for. The hotkeys don't work for me because I have an interactive ubuntu environment through a chrome tab and hotkeys are finicky at best with it. – fIwJlxSzApHEZIl Jun 09 '14 at 19:07
12

You can't.

This is a three year old bug with no solution.

You either have to use a different theme or do as I have done and give up trying and use keys to resize windows.

Mini Howto:

Alt + F8 to start resizing. Use arrow keys to resize.

Pressing Return will save the resize, escape will revert you back.

The bug report is here and has hundreds of comments on it and thirteen duplicate bug reports on launchpad alone.

Kris Harper
  • 13,477
Richard Holloway
  • 30,568
  • You sort of can. See the two questions the Jorge linked above (particularly the second one). – Matthew Oct 20 '10 at 16:31
  • Wow. Thanks. I'll soon be logging into launchpad just to contribute and follow that bug. – Malabarba Oct 20 '10 at 16:45
  • @Bruce: Go ahead and follow it, but please don't comment on it unless you have a patch (see the warning at the top of the bug report). The developers are aware of it, but it's a technical issue and they asked not to be spammed about it any more. – Matthew Oct 20 '10 at 17:50
  • 1
    As Matthew says, there are some answers. The other two questions on the same topic are merged on this question: http://askubuntu.com/questions/4109/increase-resize-margin-on-windows I'm deleting my answer because there are better answers on that thread. – marenostrum Oct 20 '10 at 18:06
  • 1
    After pressing Alt+F8 you can also resize with the mouse (just move it). – JanC Oct 20 '10 at 18:34
  • @MatthewPirocchi Here it is 2015, and the bug is still in 15.10 Wily Werewolf. Maybe they need more "spam" not less. A now eight-year-old bug should not be happening. – Mei Jan 06 '16 at 21:39
  • Also, in 15.10 Wily Werewolf - using the Greybird theme - Alt-F8 is for stick window, not resize. That can be changed with the Window Manager utility (I'm using Xubuntu). – Mei Jan 06 '16 at 21:42
0

Possible answer: works on xubuntu 20.04 https://app.box.com/s/7gk3pwdn5onj5q5b9eowa2315qy8pcy3 (zip file) instructions: https://mxlinux.org/wiki/xfce/changing-border-size-with-xfce4-window-manager/

fixitmanarizona
  • 190
  • 1
  • 7
  • Similar comment as https://askubuntu.com/questions/833950/size-of-grab-area-for-resizing-window-in-lubuntu/1351565#1351565 - please can the files be hosted on a public hosted platform? – fossfreedom Jul 13 '21 at 13:29
  • Currently it has not been packaged and added to the MX repos or anywhere else. And I haven't figured out how to edit a current theme to include the changes made this way, someone who can come up with a modified theme is, of course free to try, and upload to a public forum. There seem to be instructions on that also at MXlinux forums under the same post/topic "changing-border-size-with-xfce4-window-manager/ " – fixitmanarizona Jul 14 '21 at 10:35