Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-02-10, 19:43

Hello All,

I use a very minimalist interface for Palemoon, where the tabs are on top and the URL bar is to the right of the tabs. (see attached maximized screenshot)

Ever since the 9.0 update, I have been unable to drag Palemoon out of its maximized state by clicking at the top of the screen (above the URL bar) and dragging, and instead have to click on the "Maximize/Minimize" button, then click on the open area that appears above the URL bar to move the window (as in the un-maximized screenshot).

This functionality still works in Firefox 10.0, but not in Palemoon. Is this something that was intentionally removed? Is there a way to fix this? I constantly maximize and un-maximize my browser, and have since reverted to Firefox out of frustration. If it is possible, could you re-enable this functionality?

Sorry if I am unclear, please let me know if you have questions.

Katana

Post by **satrow** » 2012-02-10, 19:56

Clicking the top of the Pale Moon window gives me the usual non-maximised size.

There's an old Windows feature/bug that might fit the bill here though: try dragging the PM window to the size you want to see it when not maximised - then close it by hitting the 'x'. Wait a few seconds (or check in TaskMan) to ensure PM has fully closed then restart PM and test again.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-02-10, 20:13

@cymroly
No such luck... Clicking or dragging the window works just fine if the URL bar is removed, or if I turn "tabs on top" off, but not if the URL bar is present. Again, this works just fine in Firefox, but not Palemoon... something about the URL bar must have been modified in Palemoon.

Thanks for the quick reply btw!

Post by **satrow** » 2012-02-10, 21:06

Does the same thing occur if you use PM in safe mode, with extensions off and/or from a new profile? You can access each of those options easily by holding down the left Shift key whilst clicking the PM icon to start it.

Failing that, if you could list all extensions and themes, it might give Moonchild something more to go on when he logs in.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-02-11, 09:34

OK, I tested this, reconfiguring the UI in Pale Moon 9.1 to mirror your setup with URL bar next to tabs, maximizing the window, and dragging the top edge over the URL bar snaps it back out of full window mode as it should. So the core functionality is working properly, and no, this has not been disabled on purpose.

If you are not using 9.1, but 9.0.1 instead, try upgrading -- it's possible that the Pale Moon status bar add-on, which was updated between those two versions and also has an overlay for the URL bar, is causing the issue for you.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-02-13, 19:34

@Moonchild

You are correct, the statusbar add-on was causing the issue. Oddly enough though, even when I updated to 9.1, the problem still persisted, though I simply deleted the status-bar add-on, and the issue was fixed.

Thank you for the support (and for maintaining Palemoon overall), I really appreciate it. Looks like I will be able to go back to using Palemoon as my default browser again.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-12, 20:48

So this issue is back... Now that the add-on is integrated into the browser, I am unable to install the add-on and therefore unable to solve this issue. I know that I can always revert to 9.0, but that is only a temporary solution that leaves me with an out-of-date browser. Is there any way that this can be fixed in the current v11 build?

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-12, 21:07

I double-checked and with your configuration the problem you describe can't be reproduced (I couldn't reproduce it the last time either, see my previous post; the add-on suggestion was an educated guess but that should have been fixed with that particular update, and hasn't changed since). Dragging the rim above the URL bar down "un-maximizes" it properly, and sliding it back to the screen edge maximizes it again.

At this point it would be a great help if you could paste the contents of the screen you get by going to help -> troubleshooting information. use the "copy to clipboard" function and paste it in your reply (please use the [ hide ] tag of the forum to prevent a long scrolling page, if you will - thanks)
I suspect there may be a problem with other add-ons or customized settings in your particular case, most notably if you have add-ons that modify the UI of pale Moon in some way.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-13, 03:35

I tried disabling all of my addons and that didn't help the situation at all, so those can't be causing the issue. Also, as stated, this is something I run into on all of the computers that I run Palemoon on, so I know it isn't just an issue with one device...

Thanks for being so quick to troubleshoot the issue. Hopefully you can find something in the Troubleshooting Information:

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-13, 03:40

One last bit of information you may or may not find useful: when I right click at the top of the screen where I would normally be able to drag the window out of maximized state in Pale Moon, I get the URL bar context menu with "Undo, Cut, Copy, Paste, Paste and Go, Delete, and Select All", but when I do this in Firefox, I get the window context menu with "Menu Bar, Navigation Tools, Bookmarks Toolbar, Addon Bar, etc..." So essentially, Pale Moon (or the PaleMoon Statusbar, to be exact) is extending the URL bar all the way to the top of the window in maximized state, but Firefox is not.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-13, 09:35

I still can't reproduce the problem

I've made a quick repack of the current development version of the browser in respect to the status bar functionality that is in the works (portable) and will shoot you a PM with the link. It would help greatly if you can give that a test and let me know if that works for you or not. First, try to run it as-is, I've set it up the way I tested it with the URL bar next to the tabs on top, and I have no issues with it.
If that works OK for you, then customize it the way exactly you would, then test again.
If the problem pops up again then, please tell exactly what you did to customize the toolbars, and kindly send back a new zip with the portable exactly the way it is when the problem exists so I can have a look.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-13, 15:59

I was also unable to reproduce the problem in that build. I decided to go ahead and completely uninstall Pale Moon and all of the customizations and personal data on one of my computers, then reinstall and make all of my customizations again (which I probably should have done in the first place). That seemed to work; I have not run into the issue again. The issue must have been a conflict with the updated status bar add-on, perhaps an issue with it being updated with the download statusbar add-on installed. If I get some time I will play around with various update/add-on installation combinations to see if I can figure out what exactly caused the problem.

Thanks for being such an awesome dev. You really put effort into maintaining this browser and it shows.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-13, 16:14

I'm relieved to hear this. It really, really had me stumped why this would happen.
If you do figure out eventually what caused this problem for you, it would be great to let me know, of course. If for nothing else, it would potentially help others running into the same problem, even if a fix in Pale Moon isn't possible to prevent it.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-15, 16:35

I have found the problem!

It appears that the issue is caused by disabling hardware acceleration, something that I would not have found on the previous install because I leave it enabled on my work computer but not on my home computers. I went back and tried reinstalling Pale Moon on my personal computers and much to my dismay, the problem was still present. Frustrated, I walked through my fresh install process step-by-step and found that this problem occurred after disabling hardware acceleration.

Is there any way that you can look and see what is causing this issue? Using hardware acceleration on my personal computers causes the text to look awful, so I would certainly prefer to have it disabled if possible.

megaman · Post by **megaman** » 2012-04-15, 16:43

Updating your drivers can help but I get the same problem sometimes, enabling causes the text to look horrendous.
I have no idea how I fix it but your first goal is to update your drivers.

URL: about:config
Search: gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.enabled
Double click on the term said on "search" to make it false.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-15, 19:41

Depending on what kind of graphics hardware you have, there are a few options to solve font problems without disabling hardware acceleration.
What kind of graphics hardware do you have on your personal computers? If it's ATI/AMD, make sure to check the AMD Vision Engine Control center/Catalyst Control Center, under Gaming -> 3D application settings, anti-aliasing, that "Morphological filtering" is OFF, as that's an option that makes most windowed 3d-accelerated applications lose a lot of coherence in small details (text thins, edges blur)

@Megaman: directwrite for text is already off by default - it was on in 11.0 but caused no end of compatibility issues for integrated graphics chips.

Also, when I have time I'll see if I can reproduce the problem on my own hardware with HW acceleration disabled. I'm afraid that if this really is the problem, that it's some kind of advanced layering issue that may possibly be very hard to solve - and this situation, this specific configuration and customization on HW acceleration-disabled hardware with no other options is, unfortunately, very much an edge case that will be low on the list of "things to fix". Workarounds may be your best second option if that is the case. There are some options, but do try to solve the font issue with HW acceleration enabled first - the acceleration will play an increasingly important part in the next generation browsers.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-16, 01:22

I guess I misspoke... this issue seems to be very complex and hard to pinpoint.

My previous report regarding hardware acceleration was from my desktop, and on it, that seemed to be the issue and turning on hardware acceleration fixed the problem. I have since tried to "fix" the problem on my laptop using the same procedure with no luck. I even completely uninstalled Pale Moon, rebooted, and reinstalled. I walked through the install process exactly as I did on the desktop, and it seems that on my laptop, the issue occurs right off the bat after I customize the interface, where on the desktop, everything worked fine until I went in and disabled hardware acceleration.

This is quite frustrating, as I was very happy when I thought that I would be able to solve the problem at least temporarily....

Any idea what is causing this issue given this update?

*EDIT*
It must have something to to with the way the URL bar text is rendered, as the problem only occurs above the text section on the URL bar (the area with the red line on the attached screenshot)...

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-16, 17:30

I guess your window drawing mode is a little strange, leaving no room for the standard windows border of the window manager to be drawn (which is what Windows needs for the "drag into/out of maximized" feature).
There is a workaround though, if that's the case - simply bumping the URL bar down a few pixels should work.

You can do this through the wondrous solution called userChrome.css

In your Pale Moon profile folder (Help -> troubleshooting information, button "open containing folder" under profile) there is a folder called "chrome"
In it, you'll find 2 files: userChrome-example and userContent-example, both are css files (cascading style sheets)

If you open userChrome-example.css in notepad, you will see some example code. Leave this example code intact, and at the very bottom of the file, add:

Code: Select all

window[sizemode="maximized"] #urlbar-container {
  padding-top: 3px;
}

Save this file as userChrome.css in the same folder

Completely exit and restart Pale Moon. In maximized state, your entire URL bar should now be slightly lower than before, leaving some room for the standard windows border to show, which you can grab to drag it out of full screen.

katana346 · Post by **katana346** » 2012-04-23, 19:05

Thanks for the suggestion, that fixed the issue. I never really thought to edit the css directly... probably would have saved you unnecessary worry if I had done that in the first place. But hey, at least now you know of the issue and can help anyone else if, for whatever reason, they have the same strange bug...

Thanks again for taking the time to help out. Looks like Palemoon will continue to be my primary browser for some time so long as nothing else comes up.

Post by **Moonchild** » 2012-04-23, 19:52

Good news!

Looking again at the screenshot and comparing it with my own layout, it seems your address bar is slightly larger, and oversized compared to the tab height - that oversizing is probably what caused this issue for you but not for others. I'm not sure why the proportions would be different though.

Anyone else with the same issue can simply access this forum thread and see the solution

It's a public forum and indexed in search engines, anyway.

Pale Moon forum

Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State

Re: Unable to Drag Window Out of Maximized State