Windows opening off screen

[Sally Turner]

Hi
I am new to Inkscape and macs. I have installed Inkscape on my new iMac running Mavericks. I also had to install X11 in order for it to run. Some of the windows that open up such as the Export Bitmap and Document Properties open up slightly off scree in the top left hand corner. They are so far off screen that I cannot move them or get to all of the settings.

Sally

[jazzynico (jazzynico)]

Related or duplicate: Bug #379463 "offscreen dialogs"?
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/379463>

[Sally Turner (sally-h)]

I've discovered that if I quit Inkscape and X11 and then restart them the problem sometimes goes away.
BTW I am using dual monitors, both in landscape mode but I am running Inkscape on the main monitor. Monitor 2 is to my right as I look at them.

Sally

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Multi-monitor support of XQuartz on OS X 10.9 Mavericks is known to be partially broken - this is a problem which Apple must fix in a future upgrade of Mavericks.

Proposing to link as duplicate to
- Bug #1244397 “OS X Mavericks/XQuartz: limited support for multi-monitor setups”
  <https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape/+bug/1244397>

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Linking as duplicate to bug #1244397 - see comment #7 there for a workaround to reposition windows which are "lost" in-between spaces accessible again.

[Steve Baker (y9a7s7tjd2-s1eac-si9yrl01qs)]

This problem has driven me up the wall ever since I changed jobs to a company that uses Mac's (Generally, I'm a Linux guy).

The desperation-measure work-around is to hand-edit the default window opening places.

Exit from Inkscape and open this file with a text editor:

    ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml

...look for:

  id="dialogs">

...and you'll see an XML record for each of the dialog windows with their positions set with something like:

  x="456"
  y="231"

...just replace those numbers with something like 100 and 100 - and the next time you open Inkscape, the dialog will default to opening at that location...then you can move it someplace else, cleanly exit inkscape again...and everything will be OK from then on.

If you don't change your inkscape preferences very often, you can write-protect that file:

  chmod a-w ~/.config/inkscape/preferences.xml

...and then inkscape will always start up with the windows in the exact same places, no matter where you left them the last time you ran the program.

Just don't forget to un-protect it before you change your preferences anytime in the future.

  -- Steve

[Andrew Saturn (saturn)]

this is still a problem. when opening "recent documents" they open to their previous locations. the "fix" above is not useful as it only applies to inkscape preferences, not X11. when will this be fixed? it's 2015, normal people use multiple monitors.

[KernelPanic (jfrusciante)]

November 2016, MacOS Sierra + XQuartz, same proboem. And comment #5 just saved me hours!

[Jeff (jeff3dx)]

Not fixed for macOS 12.10.2 and X11 2.7.11. Inkscape is unusable on a Mac.

Workaround by deleting the Inkscape preferences file:
~/.config/Inkscape/preferences.xml

Don't worry Inkscape will create a new one next time it's launched and the application is now usable.

[Koos Kleven (koos42)]

This is also happening with a global preferences window pop-up. It is much harder to recover this one with wmctrl.

[Cameron Kilgore (ghostfreeman)]

This issue occurs to me with macOS 10.12.6 and X11.app. Even when I delete the existing preferences.xml and force it to rebuild, the Properties window is still lost and unreachable for access.

[Mark Crutch (markc-qsiuk)]

I've written a script that uses wmctrl to move windows/dialogs to the top left of the XQuartz screen. It's not a solution, but does make this issue much easier to manage. Full details here: http://www.peppertop.com/blog/?p=1554