How to disable auto-adjust width of panes in double-pane mode in Caja

I've recently fresh installed Ubuntu MATE 20.04 (previously used Ubuntu MATE 16.04 ) and noticed the annoying feature of Caja file manager (version 1.24.0 ). This feature appears in double-pane mode (with "Extra pane", after F3 pressed) when the "Location bar" is enabled.

While both panes show the same directory, the width of panes are equals (see screenshot1).

Once you move into any folder the width of the active pane increases (see screenshot2) adjusting to the "Location bar" width.

Firstly, this is annoying, because the width "jumping" each time distracts very much. Secondary, if the path on the one pane becomes long enough (see screenshot3), the other pane becomes very narrow that is very uncomfortable.

I've checked that in Ubuntu MATE 16.04 the width of the panes in Caja (version 1.12.7 ) keeps constant when moving between folders.

Is it possible to configure Caja to keep the width of the panes? Or should it be downgraded only?

1 Like

Hi @stasap, welcome back!

I can confirm the behaviour you mentioned. However, even with location bar enabled, the auto-adjust issue for extra pane (splitview) is only when button-based location bar is used (default); with text-based location bar there is no auto-adjust. For that you click on pencil icon :memo: on the location bar. You may consider it till you get the solution you are looking for.

1 Like

Thank you, @saivinob, for your part-solution!

Of course, it is more convenient to use buttons for a quick return to parent folders, but temporally the text-based mode can be used.

Do you advice, how to set the text-based mode by default?

Fully agree.

Once you enable the text-based location bar it stays that way (across closing and opening, logins, reboots) till you click on pencil icon again to re-enable button-style.

Indeed it stays, thank you.