Using the Oxygen Theme with Oxygen decoration, I can't find a way to increase the size of the tracking zone for resizing the windows.

By default, it is ridiculously small and not practical.
It takes me an average of 4 seconds each time I want to position the mouse over the corner. The edges are not really better. They are easier to catch because their shape is an elongated rectangle, but still not practical either.

For comparison, OS X uses these values:
Width of edge handles : 7 pixels
Size of corner handle: 16pixels x 16 pixels

Clearly, it's a violation of Fitts's law.

I found that this size can be increased, but it also increase the size of the border itself, not only the tracking zone.

So , am I missing something here ?

You found the setting for the decoration borders, so you're apparetly after the input window size for borderless edges.
It's hardcoded to 3px.
The value is pretty random, but driven by the fact that the invisible region may extend into other windows - "unpredictably" intercepting clicks (with rising odds with the inputwindows width)

You can file a wish to the oxygen decoration to make it configurable, but this maybe won't be added before "plasma workspaces 2" (ie. KDE5) because the KDE4 workspace is in maintainance mode.

Reg. Fitts' law: we've "Alt+Right mousebutton" for such - easily beats any edge width

luebking wrote:Reg. Fitts' law: we've "Alt+Right mousebutton" for such - easily beats any edge width

This is true, but it still frustrates users who don't know this trick, or who don't want to use the keyboard for this operation. Anyway, the edges are too thin and users should be able change this. Any pointers on the work currently done for the next versions of KDE ?

Hm, don't you get a larger draggable area by just increasing the border size? Sure, it looks less slick, but if it helps usability for you it's probably worth it.

"Alt+Right mousebutton" - who'd'a guessed! Awesome. Thank you.

Same request and/or complaint. It would be nice to do it easily with the mouse alone.

alecail wrote:Any pointers on the work currently done for the next versions of KDE?

Not that i'm aware of.
This is however entirely controlled by the decoration, so you might file a wish/bug to Oxygen/KWin decoration (or your preferred other decoration)
There will however be no new visible strings in KDE4 workspace, so no GUI config - but maybe a DPI aware value would do? (Retina display?)

cylverbak wrote:"Alt+Right mousebutton" - who'd'a guessed!

Welcome to X11 desktops =)
(This is pretty common among X11 WindowManagers)

cylverbak wrote:Same request and/or complaint. It would be nice to do it easily with the mouse alone.

See scummos' reply - the width of the border can be increased quite some - only the value for the "invisible" border is hardcoded (and low for mentioned reason)

luebking wrote:You found the setting for the decoration borders, so you're apparently after the input window size for borderless edges.
It's hardcoded to 3px.
The value is pretty random, but driven by the fact that the invisible region may extend into other windows - "unpredictably" intercepting clicks (with rising odds with the inputwindows width)

OK I see a problem here. The value is pretty random, where in fact it should be *carefully chosen*

Then, there is nothing wrong with the invisible region extending outside the window. Can point me which part of KDE sets this size ?
Also do you really think people do actual work in a region of a window that is really close to the edge of another window, and get frustrated because the other window intercept a click on its edge ? That doesn't make sense. Compare this to the number of people (probably greater ?) that get frustrated because they find the hardcoded 3 pixels edge too thin ?

I know that I don't bring a solution here, but I will definitively set up a machine for KDE development and have a look at it.

I don't see your problem. If you want easier-to-grab borders, just make them bigger. Having a huge clickable area with no visual counterpart whatsoever makes no sense, and thus is not being done.

Can point me which part of KDE sets this size ?

You can file a wish to the oxygen decoration to make it configurable, but this maybe won't be added before "plasma workspaces 2" (ie. KDE5) because the KDE4 workspace is in maintainance mode.

This is however entirely controlled by the decoration, so you might file a wish/bug to Oxygen/KWin decoration (or your preferred other decoration)
There will however be no new visible strings in KDE4 workspace, so no GUI config - but maybe a DPI aware value would do? (Retina display?)