NOTE: This was split from the MX Linux 18 topic. The question that Fox was having is quoted here:Quote from: fox on January 15, 2019, 07:30:50 AM
I went back to my MX installation on my laptop and found that window movement was very difficult. When I get near an edge I want to drag, I get the briefest drag symbol, but it isn't stable and it takes a lot of precision movement to be able to drag the edge. (Much more than Ubuntu on the same laptop.) I can move the window or expand it to full screen without problem; only the resizing is difficult. Is there some fix for this?
Only thing I could suggest is slowing the speed of your mouse a bit and see if that helps. It may be that the default speed is faster than you're used to.
Jason wrote 'slowing the speed of your mouse a bit'
That may do it. Though I've never had to do that once these things have occurred -
1. The open-vm modules have been installed.
2. The system has been rebooted a time or two.
3. The system is in full page on the screen.
Be interesting to see which does it. I'll bet Jason that this is not a problem on your virtual install. :) I've only seen it in the early stages of setting up the distro in virtual.
It isn't a problem on my end but I also don't have it setup as a guest in VMware; I installed it in Virtualbox.
I am very impressed with MXLinux!
I was able to install WINE from the MXLinux software manager and WINE did show up in the mxlinux Menu and Wine worked very well in running the Windows MyExpress income tax program.
Mint 19.1 still does not put WINE in it's Menu, after installing WINE, using Synaptic.
You have to go to the terminal and run winecfg. :-(
Update - I have clarified the note about installing WINE, in Mint 19.1
Anyone else experience the window dragging problem?
Resizing the MXLinux window is no problem on my virtual (vmware) MXLinux (Mint 18.3 Host) on my notebook, Mike.
Quote from: fox on January 16, 2019, 03:48:45 PM
Anyone else experience the window dragging problem?
So your mouse works fine now Bill, and the earlier problem, of grabbing sides of the window with the mouse, has disappeared?
That was Fox that was having the issue with mouse-dragging to resize windows, not Bill.
Quote from: fox on January 16, 2019, 03:48:45 PM
Anyone else experience the window dragging problem?
I haven't myself. Have you added the VMware tools (and checked for updates) as Buster suggested?
Mine is a bare metal install, not a VM.
Mike, by any chance are you using a battery mouse rather than the touch pad? And second, if not using a mouse, can you find one and try it and see if the problem still exists?
I doubt you use the mouse, but I had a similar sort of problem a while ago and new batteries fixed it. Also the problem may be centred in the touch pad software or a bug. And in virtual with the modules, the problem may not exist. I believe you are the only one with a bare metal install.
And you can also try Jason's suggested solution of slowing the mouse down.
I wasn't using a mouse but I just tried this with a plug-in mouse. It made it only slightly easier because clicking the mouse doesn't move the cursor like clicking a trackpad. But in both cases, the space for grabbing a side to move it was very, very small.
I've been exploriing MX for a bit today. I like what they've done overall, but I ran into one other problem besides the window expansion. Thunderbird has frozen on me three times.
The Conky options are very nice. I found one that displays battery percentage remaining (MX-LSD). Very helpful because the battery icon in the dock doesn'tcon show this unless you hover over it.
Try this Mike.
Hold the alt key, right click, and drag.
No idea how to do this with a pad, but it works perfectly with a mouse. The window edges thinness seems to be a Xfce problem. Tried it and it's easy and extremely cool.
And Mr Mike, I also found it you go just inside the bottom right corner of a window, you can resize easily to your heart's content. No idea why this area gives a larger area to grab on to, but it resizes up and down, as well as left right.
Alt-right key works sometimes to expand windows; other times it just moves the window. Working from the bottom right corner works in some apps and not in others. I wanted to add a calendar to MX Linux and had difficulty there. I couldn't figure out a way to add Google Calendar (except from the browser). I tried Gnome Calendar, but it didn't pick up my Google Calendar information and I couldn't figure out a way to do that. Harry, do you use a calendar app in MX Linux? Anyone else?
I can try one. But we have a calendar on the wall that does all that stuff. I use a fair bit of pen and paper. But then I'm very old.
I'll see what I can do for a test of a calendar.
It might not be related but resolution are you running at? I'm wondering if you're at at ultra-hd like 4k or something and it's hard to grab because the area is so small.
Quote from: Jason Wallwork on January 17, 2019, 10:48:23 PM
It might not be related but resolution are you running at? I'm wondering if you're at at ultra-hd like 4k or something and it's hard to grab because the area is so small.
That makes sense, Jason, but I'm running at 1920 x 1080 on a 13" laptop. I don't have the same problem in Ubuntu/Gnome on the same laptop. As Harry suggested, the problem could be with xfce rather than MX Linux, as I haven't tried xfce on any other distro.
Mike wrote: "Alt-right key works sometimes to expand windows; other times it just moves the window."
Hmmmmm... As you probably know, in Linux, alt left click drag moves a window, alt right click drag resizes a window. Let me think....
Mike wrote: "the problem could be with xfce rather than MX Linux"
It's a matter of minutes to put into MX a KDE option. Somewhere in the forum I put the easy instructions. DO NOT use Synaptic! There is a simple mouse click procedure to do this.
If you like KDE at all, this gives you a less frustrating way to test the distro.
I just tried KDE. Seems harder to resize windows than in Xfce. Ah well. Worth a try Mike.
I like MX enough to try some vm experiments. I downloaded it again and put it into a vm to see what happens to the window resizing function. I also added the Gnome desktop to that VM to see how that works. I saw a video on MX with Gnome here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8pTonhpwtQ). Aside from possibly fixing the window resizing issue, Gnome has an online accounts setting that should work to make Gnome Calendar work properly with Google calendars, or perhaps to add the Google Calendar app itself.
First observation. Running MX live in Virtualbox (xfce). Resizing windows is somewhat easier, but then I'm using it on my 27" iMac, so a much bigger display. When I installed MX in the vm, it still wasn't super easy to resize windows; better than on my laptop but no better than in the live version in Virtualbox. Once I installed the Gnome desktop, the difference was apparent - much easier because the change to the resize arrow doesn't require nearly the same precision of lining up on the edge like in xfce. That is sufficient evidence for me to conclude that the problem is with xfce rather than MX Linux, although it is certainly possible that other distros using xfce have instituted a fix.
Incidentally, I was pleasantly surprised at how fast MX Linux is in a virtual machine, but then again, so is windows. The other thing I noticed is that drag and drop to and from host didn't work on a default installation. I had to download the Virtualbox Additions within the VM and install them (from a terminal). Then they worked.
Quote from: buster on January 18, 2019, 09:18:54 AM
Hmmmmm... As you probably know, in Linux, alt left click drag moves a window, alt right click drag resizes a window. Let me think....
Wow, learn something new every day. I did not know about alt-right-click for resizing Windows. It's not very precise but that's a cool alternative. I use alt-left-click a lot. Sometimes it's for when the OS misplaces windows and you can't see the top window bar to move it but other times just on lower resolution screens when the window is just too high to fit and you can't find the OK button.