Take the 2-minute tour ×

The Gnome programmers probably have a hidden counter of each time a user misses the resize of a window horizontally, and take a good laugh when they look at it...

Because to resize a window horizontally, one need to click exactly on the very pixel at the edge of the window (on the left, or on the right).

I feel the pain of the users having those old roller ball mouses...

Anyway, is there a way to configure this?
Meaning, is there a way to change the width of the area that makes the mouse pointer feels it should change into the resize mode?

share|improve this question
Not sure if this works in Gnome, but sometimes in linux, you can hold alt and right click. This will resize windows from anywhere in the window. –  David Oneill Dec 17 '10 at 17:57
Alt-right-click opens the right click menu... that allows a resize! Too bad you didn't post an answer :-) –  ring0 Dec 17 '10 at 18:08
Made into an answer :) –  David Oneill Dec 17 '10 at 20:26

2 Answers 2

up vote 1 down vote accepted

I don't use gnome, so I couldn't remember if this applies. But, when I hold alt and right click, it resizes the window.

@ring0 replied to my comment adding that in gnome, it brings up a menu with 'resize' being an option. Once he mentioned that, I remembered that this was one of the many reasons I don't like gnome. I really like my alt-right-click resize...

share|improve this answer
It works actually! –  ring0 Dec 18 '10 at 2:17

It's defined by the Metacity theme. Find a theme that has a wider border.

Or just use Alt-Middle Click.

share|improve this answer
Thanks. But is there a way to customize only the width of the border left & right? I.e. without changing the theme... –  ring0 Dec 17 '10 at 18:07
You could modify the theme metadata; no clue if that counts as "changing" it. –  Ignacio Vazquez-Abrams Dec 17 '10 at 18:16

Your Answer


