Increasing size of window elements?

Support & Help Requests
#1

I had been looking for a medium-light distro for the older laptop (Core 2, 4 GB RAM, 1024x768) of my elderly landlady as a replacement for the unsupported Windows XP that had been installed there. It took me years to convince her to let me put something on there that is secure, supported, and responsive. Ubuntu MATE turned out to be the perfect fit (she also wanted something clean that is not overwhelming) and everything worked right out of the box (WLAN, sound, volume buttons, etc).

There is one small issue: The window elements (minimize, maximize, close) are relatively small and a little difficult for her to see and reliably hit. :slight_smile: Is there a way to increase their size? They aren't affected by the font size (which is fine anyway) and icons and such are good as they are. It's just those control elements that could ideally a bit bigger and easier to see.

Thanks for any pointers!

#2

Does this reference help?

1 Like
#3

I found a reference in a previous post that may help.

https://ubuntu-mate.community/t/can-i-hack-the-window-control-button-size/11499

As far as I understand, all the window elements are .png images, so they would need to be recreated in a larger size, and the title bar element to match.

The post also mentions the high-contrast theme, which is already pretty large.

You might be able to find a gnome 2 theme around that you can pull widgets from--or a search might turn up a theme designed for low-vision.

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#4

Thank you both! I will try the high-contrast theme when I'm at her laptop again (tomorrow probably, since she would like me to walk her through the update process again) and also write down keyboard commands for her. That was a good idea, too.

The post referenced also mentioned editing an XML file, which I'll look into too. I'll install a copy of the distro "locally", so I can test a bit without someone sitting next to me! :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

Definitely not, for some themes at least.

The custom theme I use (like TraditionalOK) has all the "window FRAME stuff" in the XML.