Windows titlebar icons - changing size/scale?

[motiontwister]

Hi all! I was wondering if anyone knows how to manually scale or change the size of the windows titlebar icons (I hope I got this right, but here's an image attached below to make sense of what I'm saying)? I have a high-DPI display, and while the simplest way to scale things up would be via Fractional Scaling, enabling that makes the whole user experience worse (glitchy animations and more resources used in my case).

I've scaled up the Fonts using gnome-tweaks but the icons in the folders are still at 100% and quite tiny to work with. Of course, I could just use keyboard shortcuts to navigate, but wanted to see if there was a simple enough workaround to scale up that part of the UI at least. I managed to get in the gtk css file where that part of the code is supposedly - basically trying to customise the theme - but wanted to try and get some guidance before I start to experiment.

Has anyone got any experience with that particular issue?

[StarTreker]

Another thing you can do is adjust display scale percentage. This is what I have in POP OS...

As you can see, I have mine set to 200%, because I too run a HI-DPI display, as its 4K, and if I didn't do this, I wouldn't see anything.

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[motiontwister]

Thanks @StarTreker but sadly I've got a 13" laptop screen and 200% is too much. It's got to be set to somewhere in-between.

P.S. Perhaps it's worth mentioning it's a 13.3" FHD screen (1920 x 1080 native res).

[StarTreker]

You failed to mention that, and yes it is worth mentioining. There is a huge difference between a 4K 55" TV, and a 1080P 13" screen.

Well, you have fractional scaling, but you said that was a no go for you. Regarding fonts, you can increase their scales and individual sizes in TWEAKS, which you mentioned you did BTW. Also, Zorin OS comes with accessibility. If you go to your settings you will find it in there, I think its towards the bottom, might even be called Universal Access.

But, you can adjust text size there, but there is also a Zoom function. And you can config the zoom to a predefined percentage. So that when you turn Zoom on, it can zoom in on your screen.

13" screens are very small, and there is only so much you can do with them. Another option too, is to hookup a larger monitor or TV screen, which would provide you so much more screen realistate space, which is nice to have.

Of course, you might be in a space limited situation for all I know, and that option is out as well. There are APPS and extensions that can do screen adjusting as well. Let me quickly look up one for you.

https://extensions.gnome.org/extension/1306/scale-switcher/

Here is just one extension I could find for you in a hot second, there is more you can find regarding scale or zoom or whatever. Just make sure you've installed the Gnome browser integration first, and then all you have to do is pick the extension you want, click the toggle button.

It will pop up asking if you want to install your extension, by all means confirm it. You can access your extension from both Gnome Tweaks, and of course, the built in extensions manager in the OS.

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[motiontwister]

Thanks again - I don't think this extension works but I will look at something along those lines. Like you say, small laptop screens are a real brat when it comes to scaling, and it's certainly not a deal-breaker as I can transition to using shortcuts quickly enough.

But just for consistency's sake, I wanted to ask around if someone perhaps knows how to tweak that part of the UI alone - it's about the only thing that bothers me with the default look of the OS on this particular machine I use, and it does obviously crop up when using applications that adopt the gnome look.

Again, just seeking some opinions, if anyone's been in a similar situation.

[StarTreker]

Click icon bottom of screen, click settings. Go to keyboard and shortcuts. There is where you can adjust your keyboard shortcuts.

Application specific shortcuts are often set within the applications themselves, unless they are designed to use system shortcuts instead.

To tweak the OS further then you already have, is why I recommend Gnome Tweaks, its a good tool to getting that done.

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[Aravisian]

You may also download a copy of Zorin OS 15.3 Lite.
Create a bootable USB stick.
Then test Try Zorin.
In the demo, open Appearance, then fonts, then look at DPI scaling and set that as you wish - and see if that resolves some of the trouble.

XFCE's DPI scaling tends to work better than the Fractional Scaling. So if that works for you, then using XFCE may be a viable option for you. Zorin OS 16 Lite is currently in development.

[motiontwister]

Hey thanks for suggesting this. I did try Lite before committing to the Core version, but I had driver issues with Lite, weirdly. Zorin Core has given me the best out-of-the-box experience among the distros I tested, without having to tinker with it too much (well, until now!). I did try KDE as well as I had heard it had better scaling, but there were other stuff I didn't like about it.

Anyway, to my specific issue today, I think I'm sort of on the right track - I managed to add a 'min-height property' value for the titlebar buttons to the gtk.css files in .config, and that has made the close/minimise/maximise buttons larger (or at least their clickable area). Like so:

button.titlebutton {
    min-height: 42px;
    min-width: 42px;
    padding: 0;
}

Now I just need to hunt down how the rest of the buttons in the file manager are called, and tweak their minimum dimensions, without making a mess of it. Can't, for some reason, find the default gtk stylesheet to inspect it - any ideas...? (sorry, I realise this is totally n00b question!)

[Aravisian]

@motiontwister

Now I just need to hunt down how the rest of the buttons in the file manager are called, and tweak their minimum dimensions, without making a mess of it. Can't, for some reason, find the default gtk stylesheet to inspect it - any ideas...? (sorry, I realise this is totally n00b question!)

Well, I am a themer, so this is something I know a little bit about:
https://www.deviantart.com/aravisian

The icons within the button.image are set by the Icon Theme not by the Button size.
This is something we can change, too. Let's try setting the system theme up to be a certain size, then set the Icon theme up in similar fashion.

  .nautilus-window entry, .titlebar entry, window.ssd headerbar.titlebar, .titlebar,  .titlebar button *, headerbar button.titlebutton * {
     min-height: 42px;
     min-width: 42px;
}

The asterisks are a catch_all and they may not work as intended. For example, buttons you do not want enlarged may get enlarged.
So the above may need some tweaking.
The best way to do this is to create a file named gtk.css and place it in ~/.config/gtk-3.0/

Then reload the desktop with alt+F2 and enter into it r
in between making changes to the .css file to see the effect right away.

Icon theme:

nautilus

Create a directory in your ownership named .icons in your home folder.

sudo -i

nautilus

Navigate to the icon theme you want to use. If it is a Zorin theme: /usr/share/icons/zorin...
Right click and copy, then move it to ~/.icons
Right click the Moved Directory and set the User Permissions and Ownership to YOUR User account, not Root.
Click Apply to enclosed files
Once done, close out the elevated privilege Nautilus instance.

nautilus

Navigate to the moved icon directory and open index.theme
Search for scalable/actions and change the value for MinSize:

[scalable/actions]
Context=Actions
Size=16
MinSize=16
MaxSize=512
Type=Scalable

I set mine to 24. But you can set yours to 36 for example.
next:

[16x16/actions]
Context=Actions
Size=16
Type=Fixed

[24x24/actions]
Context=Actions
Size=24
Type=Fixed

[32x32/actions]
Context=Actions
Size=32
Type=Fixed

Same with this, for each, set the Size to the size you need them to be. Be sure to Save the File when done.
This MAY backfire on some apps, so please update with this thread to find a solution.

[Frog]

WOW .... I didn't know you had a web page .... very interesting .... looks like I'll be spending some time over there today just like I spent the majority of time yesterday reviewing the Tutorials & Guides section and making copies of stuff to add to my documents folder ....

[Aravisian]

@Frog

I didn't know you had a web page ...

I am in the process of making my own webpage and setting up a download server. It is a project I keep putting on the back burner.
Until then, I am making use of launchpad as a repository:

Aravisian in Launchpad

This allows me to upload and users that install can then install from the terminal or Synaptic. Then they also get automatic updates on all my themes instead of having to check In and Re-install it.

And making use of DeviantArt as my "page" until mine is set up.
For my own page, I want to begin uploading my own Software and GTK stuff, things I have been working on on the side to try to Offset some of the recent developments in GTK4.
As well as XFEX (A working title), which forks some aspects of XFCE, fixes the Window Border problem (Window Resizing even with a one pixel border) and various other things that I have so far been keeping to myself.

[motiontwister]

Thank you for the tutorial @Aravisian! Adding this to the .css worked like a charm for the file manager/settings app. Is there a way to do this for any of the third-party stock apps - namely libreoffice, evolution and rhythmbox - or are they all tied to their own stylesheets (I imagine so anyway)? Either way, thanks for your help - I've got decently-sized titlebars in the most frequently used places now, so that's a good start.

I haven't moved the icon sets and changed the size parameters yet - I take this is done in order to better fit the icons within the parameters defined in the gtk stylesheet, and each icon set should then be reloaded via Tweaks?

[Aravisian]

@motiontwister

I haven't moved the icon sets and changed the size parameters yet - I take this is done in order to better fit the icons within the parameters defined in the gtk stylesheet, and each icon set should then be reloaded via Tweaks?

Yes.

@motiontwister

Is there a way to do this for any of the third-party stock apps - namely libreoffice, evolution and rhythmbox - or are they all tied to their own stylesheets (I imagine so anyway)?

You are using Zorin OS Lite?
If so, that is XFCE, and the Window Borders are properly managed by the Window Manager. That can be adjusted, too. that can be done graphically, instead of with a stylesheet.

[motiontwister]

Thanks for suggesting this - I am with Core, but just gave in and backed off my resolution to 1600 x 900 - really should've done this in the first place. It's not perfect, but the UI is sufficiently sharp and I don't have to ponder how I should scale up Photoshop via Wine (I did find out how, by the way; it's just that this seems to be a more sane, one-size-fits-all option). Thanks everyone for your input!

[Zorunimac]

Hello I have a similar problem. But I want to make the titlebar (the whole bar, not just the font) and the window buttons smaller, because it looks so bulky on a FullHD 27" monitor. It seems that there is no implemented feature in the GUI to achieve that. Is the modification of the theme files the way to go? Thanks for the help!

[Aravisian]

Crosslink:

How to scale menu, titlebar and window buttons?

I didn't say that I prefer Unity! If there is no implementet feature in the GUI to adjust this, then maybe this topic should be moved to the customization category? I also found this topic There they adjust the theme files. The intention is not the same like mine, in that topic they want to make it bigger. But is that the direction I should take? Thanks for the help!