After updating Debian Sid, Dolphin is missing the title bar Minimize and Maximize buttons. The Close button is still there. The same issue affects Krusader.

I'm using the IceWM "desktop" with a fairly minimal Debian Sid installation, with a mix of GTK2, GTK3, and QT/KDE apps. None of my GTK apps are missing any title bar buttons. Of my KDE/QT applications, Krita, DigiKam, kcalc, konsole, qpdfview, Ark, krename and Okular have all three title bar buttons. But the two file managers - dolphin and krusader - are missing the Minimize and Maximize buttons.

I saw posts on the internet of people having the same issue for various GTK applications, and one forum listed a solution that can be done from the command line. Searching the internet for missing buttons for KDE/QT applications turned up these two pages, that have solutions that I can't follow, not having the system settings GUI: viewtopic.php?f=66&t=117503 and http://linuxbsdos.com/2012/07/04/how-to ... r-buttons/

I know there are other ways to minimize/maximize an application, but they all require more than one "click" to accomplish. Because of issues with my hands, I try to minimize required "clicks", so these workarounds just aren't an option.

I've used Dolphin as my "go to" file manager for many years now. The only reason I installed Krusader was because of the missing buttons in Dolphin, and sadly Krusader has the same issue. Any suggestions as to how to get the missing buttons back would be greatly appreciated. Preferably I'd like a command line solution, or the location/name of whatever configuration file that needs modifying. But if I have to install a whole lot of KDE/QT "GUI stuff" just to get all three buttons back for Dolphin, that's OK.

I actually tried installing "stuff" including "systemsettings" mentioned in one of the links given above. But the KDE/QT panels were missing, it only showed panels for configuring GTK applications, and I don't know what "other stuff" needs to be installed to get the other panels.

I know it sounds like a small thing. But not having the minimize/maximize buttons considerably changes the available ways to interact with the dolphin window.

Persuing the internet, for GTK and also KDE/QT It seems many people are interested in removing these buttons and also the entire title bar. But surely there is also a way to put the missing buttons back in place?

I updated my other debian sid box, set up similarly to the one I'm at right now, and Dolphin still has the minimize/maximize buttons. So clearly it's not a "Debian Sid" issue but rather a configuration problem on this particular machine.

Is there a configuration file that tells Dolphin what buttons to show in the title bar?

Could it be a gtk2/3 configuration issue that somehow only affects Dolphin and Krusader? Seems unlikely because no other KDE apps are affected and no GKT2/3 apps are affected.

Maybe I'm asking for help in the wrong forum? Is there a better forum for asking how to get the minimize/maximize buttons back?

Do you have the relevant Plasma themes installed? They provide the icons and window decoration for KDE apps, might just be missing these. Oxygen for KDE4 apps, Breeze for Qt5 based ones

Mamarok wrote:Do you have the relevant Plasma themes installed? They provide the icons and window decoration for KDE apps, might just be missing these. Oxygen for KDE4 apps, Breeze for Qt5 based ones

Hi Mamarok, and thank you! for responding. I do have Oxygen and Breeze themes installed. I also have "systemsettings" installed, callable from the command line using "/usr/bin/systemsettings5". I think this is the right user interface for making changes to KDE applications. But I only have a tiny subset of the various panels that I've seen in online screenshots. Do you happen to know what other debs might need to be installed to get the other panels for systemsettings5?

The easiest way would be to install a Plasma desktop, as many of these are actually Plasma settings.

Mamarok wrote:The easiest way would be to install a Plasma desktop, as many of these are actually Plasma settings.

Thank you again for trying to help. I decided to solve the problem of the Dolphin missing min/max buttons by first uninstalling the many additional dependencies that I'd already installed trying to find a way to restore Dolphin's missing title bar buttons, and then uninstalling Dolphin itself.

In place of Dolphin I'm using SpaceFM (bonus: The timedate format is easy to set - Dolphin's was contrary to my preferred YYMMDD format) and Double Commander (bonus: In addition to having an embedded terminal as Dolphin does, it also allows to sort files by file extention).

I'm still puzzled as to why Dolphin on Debian Sid lost its min/max buttons in the first place as none of the GTK applications on the same machine have any missing buttons, and the same basic setup on the Debian machine upstairs doesn't have this issue, and neither does my Gentoo install, which is similiarly configured to use IceWM and a mix of GTK/KDE applications.

Additional things you could try is install another window manager such as OpenBox or FluxBox, and see if they present the min/max buttons appropriately for Dolphin. I'd suspect the problem has to do with some local configuration associated with IceWM.
You might post the issue over in icewm's github issue tracker for additional assistance, as they may be better able to help pinpoint the problem.

Mamarok wrote:The easiest way would be to install a Plasma desktop, as many of these are actually Plasma settings.

Installing Plasma in the hope that "something" might fix the problem would add considerably to the number of otherwise totally useless (to me ) packages needing constant updating under Debian Sid.

airdrik wrote:Additional things you could try is install another window manager such as OpenBox or FluxBox, and see if they present the min/max buttons appropriately for Dolphin. I'd suspect the problem has to do with some local configuration associated with IceWM.
You might post the issue over in icewm's github issue tracker for additional assistance, as they may be better able to help pinpoint the problem.

I really don't see how IceWM can be the problem:

1. Searching the text files that configure IceWM showed absolutely no line in any file that mentions Dolphin, neither in my home folder nor in /usr/share/icewm. Having something prespecified for Dolphin would be just plain weird as IceWM is basically a GTK2 application that gets absolutely minimal updates. I'm not even sure there actually is still an "upstream" for IceWM. I'm just glad that most Linux distributions still provide it.

2. Just to be sure IceWM configuration under Debian Sid wasn't the source of the problem, I copied the IceWM files from Gentoo (this particular machine dual-boots Gentoo and Debian Sid) over to Debian, restarted the machine, and the missing titlebar buttons in Debian (not missing in Gentoo) were still missing.

3. I have the same set-up (IceWM and a mix of GTK and QT/KDE applications) on a second machine upstairs, also running Debian Sid, and it doesn't have the "missing buttons for Dolphin" problem.

4. Searching the internet, plenty of KDE/QT and other desktop users have reported issues with buttons suddenly going missing in the title bar.

The good news is that while looking at all the IceWM files, I figured out a way to tell IceWM to override whatever misguided system or auto-generated user setting file managed to remove the titlebar buttons from Dolphin. In case anyone else happens to come here looking for a solution to missing titlebar buttons under IceWM, here it is - modify as needed for any other application that somehow lost its titlebar buttons:

Open or create the file $HOME/.icewm/winoptions, and add these lines:

Code: Select all

#dolphin
dolphin.dResize: 1
dolphin.dMinimize: 1
dolphin.dMaximize: 1

Thanks all! for the input. It's nice to have Dolphin back to its normal configuration with Minimize/Maximize buttons restored to the titlebar.