[SOLVED] firefox in snap and deb install does not obey window behaviors

[suplero]

New install of 24.04 on a minisforum um773 mini computer, using AMD 680M graphics.

Window behavior is set to focus follows mouse (mouse precedent) with click to raise turned off, and active window behaviors are left click raise, right click lower, middle click toggle raise lower.

Firefox in either the snap form or the deb install does not inherit these behaviors.

Initial steps: clean install, kept the snap version of firefox and then used the script to add non-snap firefox. Both snap and non-snap firefox worked the same.

Then removed the non-snap version of firefox with the script and removed the snap version of firefox.

Followed the steps to add the mozilla ppa and installed firefox from the ppa.

Even the new version of firefox does not inherit the settings - the icons do not update to the selected set (plastik) and the behaviors are not obeyed. One firefox window pops up over another and can't be raised or lowered to view the window contents.

Changing the window behavior to allow click to raise works in the new install though, although this is not preferred as a working behavior.

Any tips to get border clicking and window decorations to work would be appreciated.

thanks

[suplero]

Solved.

Firefox in a default install does not actually have a "Title bar" in use for KDE to apply behaviors to. Weird design choice to me, as there is always a title bar showing.

To get the actual usable KDE Titlebar working, customize the toolbar and at the bottom left is a very small teeny tiny check box that says "Title Bar", which is turned off by default.

Steps:

Hamburger Menu on upper right -> More Tools at the bottom -> Customize Toolbar

check the "Title Bar" box at the lower left, and "Done"

Now the plastik decorations work as do all the window behaviors, as this little check box brings firefox into the desktop environment.

Edit: I discovered this after installing chromium to check for behaviors and then trying to get a "menu" on chromiun and seeing the "use system title bar and border" option (but no menu option) and looked for that in firefox. Browser developers are a different breed of programmer I guess. Maybe too used to the phone type look and desktops are a second thought.

[Schwarzer Kater]

The same goes for e.g. Thunderbird, Brave or Telegram.
All of them have settings to use the system's (in our case: Plasma's) window decorations.

[suplero]

It's really weird though, because firefox makes a completely fake title bar... why?? The firefox titlebar allows for moving the window, for maximizing on double click, with minimize maximize and close decorations, AND THEN has the option to use the desktop environment title bar?

Makes absolutely zero sense to me in a desktop setting, especially to have the option unchecked by default. Why do browser devs work doubly hard? I'm sure it is for phones, much like the win8 surface debacle.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Why?
If in doubt, I would blame GNOME, Red Hat or Canonical… (I am not really serious in this case, of course.)

[jlittle]

It's really weird though, because firefox makes a completely fake title bar... why??

I suspect it's necessary so that firefox can do what chrome does; perhaps to get its tabs on the top of the window. (I strongly dislike them there, but when chrome introduced them there people thought it was cool.)

[claydoh]

I think it is mainly to keep the same appearance across platforms, on top of people complaining about uselessly wasted screen real estate.

Most people have no need for a menu bar on a browser, most of the time.

The firefox titlebar allows for moving the window, for maximizing on double click, with minimize maximize and close decorations

I do all that from the tab bar or the empty space next to my search bar (I figured that one out by accident recently). Why have an extra empty bar to do all that? Because enough people whined loudly for this wasted space option wanted it.

On top of that, KDE title bars are not at all implemented the same way that Gnome ones are. And far more people use Gnome/Gtrk-based desktops on Linux than KDE.