Can not resize GEDIT windows by moving window edge

[Bill Turner, wb4alm]

Gedit

UBUNTU 16.04.1 GNOME 3-20 GEDIT 3.20.2
Please restore the previously available ability to resize the gedit window by grabbing an edge or corner of the window and moving the edge.

I manipulate many text files each day and frequently have several open and visible at the same time on the same monitor. (I have multiple monitors.) The ability to quickly change the dimensions of individual windows is very important, and the "new" GNOME 3 method of:
1. Move mouse to title bar, right click
2. move the "selection" bar -DOWN- several lines, click on the word "resize"
3. --CAREFULLY-- move the mouse --ONLY-- in the direction you want to expand or reduce the window size.
4. More often then NOT, you then get to do this all over again because the computer moved the left side of the window, rather then the right side as you had intended, or the top of the window instead of the bottom, or some sort of vice-versa forcing you to now move your cursor to the top of the screen to reposition the entire window.

Much easier to just grab an edge and move THAT edge.

I have also noticed that the majority of the applications installed on my system also allow grabbing the window edges, even though most of them also have the "click on a non-existant icon and hope that you get a usable pulldown menu to do something useful." method of selecting options that gnome 3 seems to like.

What's worse is where the "help" and "preferences" selections are - especially when you have a multi-monitor sysytem. (But I will have to say, that GNOME 3 is much better than UNITY.)

Now if this method of selecting options (Resize, help, preferences, Print, etc) was done to support "Touch screens" then I have to ask, please, PLEASE, provide a user selectable option of "Desktop" or "Touch Screen" so that the user can make their own choice...

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 16.04
Package: gedit 3.20.2-2ubuntu1~ubuntu16.04.1 [origin: LP-PPA-gnome3-team-gnome3-staging]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.4.0-45.66-generic 4.4.21
Uname: Linux 4.4.0-45-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_uvm nvidia_drm nvidia_modeset nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.20.1-0ubuntu2.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: GNOME
Date: Fri Nov 4 06:32:16 2016
InstallationDate: Installed on 2014-05-11 (908 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS "Trusty Tahr" - Release amd64 (20140417)
SourcePackage: gedit
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

As long as the window is not maximized or snapped to the left or right, I can resize a window by dragging one of its edges or corners.

[Bill Turner, wb4alm (wb4alm)]

Jeremy, I can not. can you verify what distro you are operating under?

bill@WB4ALM-07:~$ uname -a

Linux wb4alm-07 4.4.0-45-generic #66-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 19 14:12:37 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
bill@WB4ALM-07:~$ cat /etc/X11/default-display-manager

/usr/sbin/gdm3

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
bill@WB4ALM-07:~$ cat /etc/lsb-release

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS"

--------------end----------------

According to Synaptic gedit is 3.20.2-2ubuntu1~ubuntu16.04.1
I have uninstalled and reinstalled with no change.

I do have http://ppa.launchpad.net/gnome3-team/gnome3-staging/ubuntu xenial main in place --- this was required to fix several other critical bugs several months ago (sorry don't remember the exact circumstances now)

I do not understand why, if it works for you (and if we are on the same software) it would not work for me...

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

My primary distro is currently Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 amd64. I also tested a stock Ubuntu GNOME 16.04 LTS with the GNOME3 Staging PPA for xenial. Resizing gedit and other windows by dragging the corners or edges works fine as long as the window is not maximized completely or maximized to the left or right side of the screen.

Can you duplicate the issue with a new user account?
(Perhaps you are using a different theme or have a GNOME Shell extension that is causing your problem.)

The method we're discussing is the second bullet point listed at https://help.gnome.org/users/gnome-help/stable/shell-windows-states.html

Except for the Super modifier, all the other methods listed there work here too.

[Bill Turner, wb4alm (wb4alm)]

The windows are not maximized nor are they close to the edges of the physical monitor screen.

Other applications, with the exception of "Files 3.20.3" have edges that I can grab hold of.

The same problem exists for all user accounts on the system, including a brand new one.

"gedit" and "files" are the only two programs that I have found so far that have this problem of not being able to be resized by grabbing a window edge or corner.

There is no edge to grab hold of. What I mean, is if you move the mouse to the edge of the window or into a window corner, there is no cursor shape change (and therefore no recognition that you are "on the edge"). If you use the ALT-F8 technique and move the mouse, you get an immediate cursor shape change (and the cursor is repositioned to the edge) and that edge of the screen can be moved.

all other gedit resizing methods, including the ALT-F8 do work.

To my knowledge, I am using the Radiance" theme and there have not been any other changes made that could affect the width of any window margins.(I have read in the past about problems where the width of the window edge was too small to grab hold off, but cannot find any reference to that comment now...)

All files in the usr/share/themes/ "Radiance" and "Ambiance" are tagged as last modified 29 AUG 14:40 or 14:41.

/usr/share/themes/Radiance/index.theme:
[Desktop Entry]
Type=X-GNOME-Metatheme
Name=Radiance
Comment=Ubuntu Radiance theme
Encoding=UTF-8

[X-GNOME-Metatheme]
GtkTheme=Radiance
MetacityTheme=Radiance
IconTheme=ubuntu-mono-light
CursorTheme=DMZ-White
ButtonLayout=close,minimize,maximize:
X-Ubuntu-UseOverlayScrollbars=true

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Thank you. I can confirm this bug with Ambiance or Radiance with Ubuntu GNOME 16.10 when running GNOME Shell.

As a workaround, I suggest you use a different theme. You can change the them by using the Tweak Tool app. Adwaita is the default and well-tested. You might also like Greybird (install greybird-gtk-theme ) which is Xubuntu's default theme.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Bill Turner, wb4alm (wb4alm)]

Thank YOU, Jeremy for the assistance. Had you not said "different theme" I would not have remembered to look in that direction to see exactly what was being used.

[Bill Turner, wb4alm (wb4alm)]

I have confirmed that changing the theme fixed the problem in both "gedit" and in "files".
I will use Greybird for the time being. Again, thank you.

[Bob van de Loo (bob-digitalis)]

I switched themes from ambiance to adwaita which solved the problem

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

This is fixed in Ubuntu 17.10 Alpha. I don't know yet if the fixed version will be backported to older Ubuntu versions.