non-KDE app filechooser trick

did you ever get annoyed of that non-KDE application using KDE’s native file chooser taking up the entire width of your screen whenever it is opened?  this seems to be a common and persistent problem for non-KDE applications that use the KDE file chooser to open or save files.  a good example of this is OpenOffice.org.  here is a simple trick to solve that problem.

Step 1 > Click on the file chooser icon as shown in the image below.  Or you can click on the File menu and then selecting Open.

Step 1

Step 2 > When the file chooser dialog box is already out, resize it to your preference.

Before.  Notice how the file chooser box occupies the entire length of my screen.

Step 2

After.

kdetrick_step2

Step 3 > Click on the window menu that is usually at the icon located at the top left corner of the window.  Then select Advanced, and then selecting Special Window Settings from its sub-menu.

kdetrick_step3

Step 4 > On the Special Window Settings dialog box, check on Size and select Remember from the drop down menu to its right.  This will tell it to remember the size of the file chooser dialog box to its current width and height (when you resized the box in Step 2).This will not only remember the size of the file chooser dialog box on this session, but also in future sessions.

Step 4

Step 5 > Don’t forget to click OK once you’ve done all these steps.  Close everything.  You don’t have to close the application (OpenOffice.org in this example).  Open the file chooser dialog box again and notice that its dimensions are now set according to how you wanted it.

Note that this trick will only remember the size of the file chooser dialog box to the application you’ve configured it to.  I’m sure there are ways to tell KDE to always set the file chooser box to a certain width and height.  That’s gonna be another topic later on.  Enjoy! 😀

Similar Posts:

Notice: This article was published on May 12, 2009 and the content above may be out of date.
How To, linux