The first thing that is noticed is that the “digital” clock now has tiny print.
Then Thunar, the crown jewel, insolently sets the window size that it wants. GRRR! Dislike this buggy file manager they can never get right. Light my foot, I’d rather have Dolphin which is bloated instead, or Caja which is slow and clunky.
I would have passed up this so-called upgrade if I were given the choice. Otherwise I desperately require a way to cause Thunar to remember the window size that I set it. I don’t use tabs with it because once it crashed when I checked out that feature and then I said, “Never again!” This XFCE upgrade almost makes me want to reinstall EndeavourOS with a different D.E., I’m serious.
I don’t care what else this disgusting file manager offers as long as I cannot set something on it that I want, which I think is fundamental for a window manager.
I know ranting about it is weak but this is disruptive to me. I’m getting this on ArcoLinux as well. I had thought it was a tendency of that other distro.
There are “hidden settings” that allow you to specify a window size when Thunar launches. I set this on the 4.16 version and 4.18 follows it.
[https://docs.xfce.org/xfce/thunar/hidden-settings]
I couldn’t stand using Thunar when it opened at whatever it thought the last window size might have been.
Alternatively, if you are using XFCE because it should be lightweight, another option with more consistent features is Cinnamon DE.
Nemo has similar customisation options to Dolphin, and by using desklets, applets, and extensions you can get almost any experience that you would like from the DE itself.
There is is an old trick. Click on the window’s full size button, then on the previous size button. Close it now. In order to open a new window, in principle, you start the window with the saved previous size settings, in principle, it uses the saved settings.
Thank you for your replies. Except who thinks I’m lying or going off?
OK look at a positive side of the Thunar window which now I consider oversized: easier to drag files from one instance to another, that is, if it doesn’t care if it’s being done into a folder or ZIP file. I’m paranoid about that. Often I have to drag toward the list header or toward a tab. Maybe it should allow sidebar on the right-hand side also.
It’s a shame that a simple operation isn’t enough to get a program to behave – have to look for hidden settings to force it, but that’s only if it responds. I cannot totally disable the sliding around with many files listed, which looks stupid. Even worse, doing a global one-at-a-time search and replace in a text editor which is driving me up the wall.
I was willing to live with that animation that I cannot turn off. I was willing also to live with Thunar insisting in showing the horizontal scrollbar because it cannot cope with very long filenames or some other ridiculous excuse going against my keeping the view tidy. I was even willing to live with how Slackware and Void Linux was with this D.E., inflexible with changing its look and having other oversights like lack of Network Manager or system tray volume control. But I just knew that this so-called update was going to focus the most on Thunar and it was going to be the end of it for me.
I’m keeping what I have with EndeavourOS but this will be the absolute last time I will stand this D.E. Sadly have to give Plasma more credit.
Also the long filename thing is for list view not for icon view, also have to show file sizes and dates on the same line. But don’t care about me. I guess the [F3] thing is the main reason why this incredibly fiddly file manager sizes how it likes.
Now I want an user preference for “classic” mode. But I liked the small window that I used to have… so much…
