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Amanda
Asked: 2012-01-18 15:40:23 +0800 CST

Why are my file selection dialogs so big? How do I make them smaller?

  • 772

When I use an external monitor, my file selection dialog boxes seem to be huge -- wider than my larger screen. I assume it is a nautilus issue since it happens whether I'm trying to open a file to upload (in firefox) or attach (in thunderbird) or just open it in LibreOffice. See screenshot:

Screenshot

The browser window fills my left-hand monitor, the "open" dialog is wider than one screen, and wider than the window that spawned it. It's huge. It didn't used to be huge.

Is there some way to force dialog windows to be smaller by default? Whenever I try to open/attach/upload a file I have to re-size the finder dialog before I can see what I'm looking at. I don't understand why it is defaulting to such a huge window.

nautilus

7 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    I managed to find a solution by figuring out that the dialog modal is always 1440 px wide. So I did grep -r "1440" ~/.config (I also looked in ~/.gnome, ~/.gconf, ~/.gconfd/ but they didn't turn up anything interesting.) I stumbled upon this gem:

    .config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini:GeometryWidth=1440

    Removing that line (and the corresponding GeometryHeight) solved the problem for me.

    • 17

  2. The window size in stored in a dconf key. You should install dconf-editor (it's in the software centre). Then, navigate to org.gtk.settings.file-chooser and adjust the window-size key.

    Does this solve your problem?

    • 3

  3. I solved this by modifying a plugin in compiz-config manager: Windows Manager:Windows Rules:Size Rules:

    New-> Size Windows: "type=Dialog", and set the size.

    • 2

  4. If I just do ALT-{SPACE BAR} and choose Restore it makes the box smaller. Then, next time it will open whatever size you made it.

    • 1

  5. This worked for me: To prevent the settings from resetting you need to add StartupMode=cwd to the ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini file. Something like below.

    GeometryX=100
GeometryY=100
GeometryWidth=600
GeometryHeight=400
StartupMode=cwd
    • 1

  6. I'm not sure, but it looks like the Archlinux guys had a similar issue where the gconf-key /apps/nautilus/preferences/navigation_window_saved_geometry was missing.

    Does this solve the problem?

    • 0

  7. Open the file below (no need to terminal; it’s under your own home):

     ~/.config/gtk-2.0/gtkfilechooser.ini

    I solved my problem on my netbook by this numbers:

    GeometryX=100
    GeometryY=100
    GeometryWidth=600
    GeometryHeight=400

    I’m not sure what these values really mean; but they are good and position the file chooser at middle center of your screen.

    • 0