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Apparently XFCE 4.16 has adopted Gnome's horrible idea of custom window decorations / client side decorations (CSD) making it look completely out of place for those of us who designed and use our own custom window decoration theme.

This is a big step backwards, towards the ugliness of Gnome, where every app looks differently and behaves differently from the rest of the system, which is something many of us have been fleeing from.

Is there a switch or a setting to disable this behaviour?

Currently only XFCE dialogs and Gnome native applications (which I try to use as little as possible) have this monstrosity. But I fear it's a plague that's spreading.

(I blame iTunes, but that's just a historical note.)

Tobia
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    The only different-looking window i can see on my system, is my web browser. A Screenshot would be good. – Sheldon Jun 11 '22 at 16:07
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    xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Gtk/DialogsUseHeader -s false disables CSD in file dialogs, which is better than nothing. – HolyBlackCat Jun 11 '22 at 18:58
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    @Sheldon Here: https://youtu.be/XP3QDzlwT5M As for the web browser, if you mean Chrome / Chromium, it has an option to "Use the system's window borders" which disables CSD. – Tobia Jun 11 '22 at 23:57
  • @HolyBlackCat Thank you!! Additionally I just installed the gtk3-nocsd package (and logged out / restarted the session) which enables the system's window decorations on all windows. This makes CSD-style windows get 2 title bars, but for my use case that's better than not having my own decorations. (see the video I posted above) – Tobia Jun 12 '22 at 00:00

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Here's what I did after this ugly GTK3 with client-side decorations creeped in:

In order to keep a classic appearance of XFCE after it migrated to GTK3, a few things can be tweaked.

Disable Client-Side Decorations

Install gtk3-nocsd package:

# apt-get install gtk3-nocsd

Open the XFCE Settings Editor, find the xsettings node, and set the DialogsUseHeader to false (uncheck the checkbox).

Alternatively, use the command-line:

$ xfconf-query -c xsettings -p /Gtk/DialogsUseHeader -s false

Disable Hidden Scrollbars

Some (GTK) desktop windows have scrollbars that disappear when the mouse is not moving. If you want scrollbars to always remain visible, add the following setting to the file /etc/environment:

GTK_OVERLAY_SCROLLING=0

Now everything should look closer to the classic UI.

scrat.squirrel
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You cannot as such disable CSD, Client Side Decorations, because these are provided by the "client", i.e., the software itself. You discovered the package gtk3-nocsd, which enables legacy window decorations on CSD applications, but the result is not always optimal, although still better depending on your personal preferences.

Alternatively, where possible, you may choose to select and use alternative software that does not use CSD. The Mate desktop has alternatives for the likes of Gedit (Pluma), Evince (Atril), Eog (Eom), which are forks that use legacy window decorations and a traditional menu bar. The XApps project of the folks over at Linux Mint also is aimed to produce applications for traditional GTK desktop environments, using modern toolkits but traditional interfaces, designed to be desktop- and distro-agnostic (e.g. Xed, xreader, xviewer).

vanadium
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