Top of windows too tall and apparently non-adjustable in kde 5.

[A. F. Cano]

On Mon, Apr 30, 2018 at 06:33:02AM +0000, Duncan wrote:
> ...
> Keeping in mind that the plasma system settings UI is undergoing some 
> changes ATM[1], and I'm running the live-git version so what I see and 
> describe might not /exactly/ match what you see...
> 
> In Window Decorations I see two tabs, theme and buttons.

Yes, same here.

> On the theme/first tab each installed/available windeco theme is listed.  
> I know the UI has changed a bit here and can't remember the old one 
> exactly, but on the new one, there's configuration buttons for each theme 
> directly in the theme's visual mockup, so it's quite apparent each of 
> these buttons ONLY configures that specific windeco, not the others.  As 
> I said I don't remember the old UI exactly, but I /think/ it had only one 
> configure-theme button, located near the top, with a dropdown-selector 
> for the windeco.

Here it's at the bottom left.  I had missed it.  Thanks for pointing it
out.

> In any case, however the UI is laid out, the idea is each windeco has its 
> own separate configuration dialog.  The default breeze windeco and the 
> kde4 default oxygen windeco each have somewhat complicated multi-tab 
> config dialogs, while plastik's dialog is rather less complicated, and 

Yes, and in plastik there's no button size like in others, but strangely
I managed to reduce the height of the title bar by reducing the font
size of the window title (to point size 8 bold).  Now the height of the
title bar is a lot closer to that of black square.

> most of the others including blacksquare only have a single option in 
> their dialog, the button size option of interest here.
> 
> IOW, all windeco config dialogs have at least the button size option, 
> with plastik's dialog having a couple other options as well, and breeze 

In this version, plastic doesn't have a button size option, but as I
said above, the height of the title bar is affected by the window title
font, up to a point.

> and oxygen's dialog having so many options each that the dialog has 
> multiple tabs.
> 
> But it's this single button size option that all windecos have that's at 
> interest here.  Most windecos appear to have a hard-coded minimum height 
> configured, with button sizes below that not shrinking the titlebar 
> further, but those above it increasing the titlebar size.

That's what I've observed with plastik.

> And while most windecos seem to have that hard-coded minimum height set 
> to normal/medium, so smaller button sizes don't reduce the titlebar 
> height further but larger ones increase it...
> 
> For blacksquare at least, either it has no such hard-coded minimum, or 
> that minimum is set to the smallest "tiny" button size.  So it's possible 
> to get blacksquare's titlebar height far shorter than the others, because 
> it continues shrinking with the tiny button size, while most won't shrink 
> below the height at normal/medium button size, even when set to tiny!

Blacksquare is still the winner for shortest height.

> As for that button you removed, that configured on the second/buttons 
> tab, and the setting should apply no matter which windeco is chosen.  You 
> should be able to drag buttons between the displayed "fake" titlebar and 
> the display of all possible buttons below it.  To get that button back, 
> then, you  /should/ be able to simply drag it from the lower icon 
> section, back up to the fake titlebar, which after hitting apply should 
> have it show up on the real titlebars as well (tho some buttons won't 
> show up all the time, context help, for instance, only shows up in plasma/
> kde/qt-based app windows with context help available).

Thanks for this clarification.  I now see the cause of my confusion with
this.  In the display of all possible buttons I see text for "Menu" "On all
desktops" "Minimize" "Maximize" "Close" "Context help" "Shade" "Keep
below" and "Keep above" but only "Menu" and "Close" have the  associated
symbol: "X" for Close and ":>" (but with 3 dots in slight arc instead of
the 2 dots/colon).  There is no symbol for the others.  When I drag any
of the others to the fake title bar nothing shows up there but if I drag
the mouse over the blank fake title bar the cursor changes to the hand
with pointing finger, indicating that there is something to click or
drag.  Since I presume the fake title bar reflects the real one, I see
the hand cursor in 2 blank spots right next to the "X" (Close) which I
presume are the Maximize and Minimize buttons.  Any other buttons I drag
to the fake title bar don't show up but the mouse changes when I go over
the invisible button just dragged.  I can also drag it back out of the
fake title bar, so at some level the system knows the buttons are there
even though they're invisible.  If you actually see the symbols for all
the buttons, it's probably a bug that has been fixed in your version.

Maybe I'm missing some font package, but it should have given an error
if this is the case.

> Also note that on this fake titlebar, you can reorder buttons as well as 
> move them from one side to the other.

This makes sense, but I'm moving invisible buttons :-)

> > ...
> > That's the idea, but where is this option?  From the package manager I

Thanks you answered the question earlier.  I leave my version of
everything for completeness.

> > gather I have kde-plasma-desktop 5:92 (Debian 9.4) and from the "help"
> > menu in konsole I see that the KDE Frameworks is 5.28, Qt 5.7.1.  Maybe
> > in this version the button size doesn't exist yet.
> 
> I believe it exists, but it's in the individual windeco configuration 

You're right of course.

> dialog, and the button for that has moved around a bit recently, as I 
> explained above.  Unfortunately that means I can't tell you exactly where 
> to find it on your version, but it should be there.

Lower left corner in this version.
 
> >> The effect is enough that if I were seriously put off by the color or
> >> other elements of the windeco, I might actually try hand-editing its
> >> config files to change them, or alternatively, try hand-editing other
> >> windeco's files to get the shortness of BlackSquare with tiny buttons,
> >> but as it happens, I'm OK enough with the color and etc not to bother.
> > 
> > In what config files could I find these options?
> 
> Here I'm talking about the hard-coded options that are part of the windeco 
> theme itself.  Basically I'd hand-edit the windeco theme itself, creating 
> a custom windeco different from whatever was originally shipped.  For 
> windecos downloaded from the kde/plasma store, these would be the windeco 
> files as found in your user config where they were placed by the 
> download.  For "native" decos shipped with plasma itself, they'd be in 
> the system location.
> 
> For windecos I've not actually looked into the specifics, tho I have hand-
> edited other elements like the colors and opacity of various "desktop 
> themes" I've downloaded before, when they were almost, but not quite what 
> I wanted.  This was in the kde4 era, but the same general idea should 
> apply today, to the windeco themes.
> 
> Actually looking at it now, it appears the blacksquare theme is aurorae-
> based[2], with the archive as downloaded unpacking at installation to (my 
> path is customized via environmental var settings but I /think/ this is 
> the generic one...) ~/.config/share/aurorae/themes/BlackSquare .  There's 

Here it's in ~/.local/share/aurorae/themes/...

> several svg[3] images as well as a metadata.desktop file and 
> BlackSquarerc, a text-based rc/config file.

Yes, I see ButtonWidth and ButtonHeight there.

> By hand-editing that BlackSquarerc file and/or switching out the svgs, I 
> could change elements of the windeco, effectively forking it from what 
> was originally shipped, customizing it to my liking.

Hopefully that won't be necessary now that I've learned a few more
tricks.  Thank you.

> If I wanted (and the license on the original blacksquare windeco 
> permitted it, I'd obviously need to verify that first), I could upload my 
> tweaked version back to the kde/plasma store and/or kdelook.
> 
> Of course I could instead alter some other windeco, changing whatever 
> setting it had, presumably TitleHeight in this case, if it were otherwise 
> closer to what I wanted than blacksquare was, and thus it was easier to 
> alter a setting or two from it, than more settings in blacksquare.
> 
> But as I said, while not "perfect", blacksquare is "good enough" that 
> I've not bothered, and I actually looked up more of the details for this 
> post than I knew before.  But it's easy enough to change the otherwise 
> "hardcoded" options, if I were sufficiently motivated by dislike of some 
> specific setting or other...

Very informative.  I too have learned quite a bit more.  Thanks again.
> 
> ---
> [1] The plasma guys are rewriting the plasma systemsettings UI using 
> ...
> 
> [2] Aurora:  I'm not a windeco theme author and don't know the specifics, 
> ...
> 
> [3] SVG: Scalable vector graphics.  These allow images to scale far more 
> ...

You have a wealth of information.  Thanks for sharing.

Augustine