1824124 - Minimize, maximize and close button appearing on Thunderbird window when using it with Linux window managers

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: Mail Window Front End, defect, P5)

Description

[05kraken]

Attachment: Close button in fullscreen

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:109.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/113.0

Steps to reproduce:

Open thunderbird on a window manager.

Actual results:

Close, minimize and maximize button appears although no button is show but when clicked or hovered on empty space it act as buttons.

Expected results:

No button should have appeared.

Comment 1

[Thomas D. (:thomas8)]

(In reply to 05kraken from comment #0)

Steps to reproduce:
Open thunderbird on a window manager.

• Please provide more details:
  • Which Linux? Which window manager?
  • Official Thunderbird install from thunderbird.net?
  • Which TB version? ≡ > Help > About Thunderbird

Actual results:
Close, minimize and maximize button appears although no button is show but when clicked or hovered on empty space it act as buttons.

Let me try to rephrase and add for a better picture.

• Initially, no close, minimize and maximize buttons are shown on Thunderbird window (which looks like a bug to me).
• Upon hovering, the buttons appear on the new Unified Toolbar (as seen in screenshot attachment 9324659 [details]), but e.g. the close icon is missing.
• When clicked, they perform the action.

Expected results:
No button should have appeared.

Why?

Comment 2

[05kraken]

• OS - Arch Linux
• Window Manager - DWM window manager
• Thunderbird Version - Thunderbird Nightly 113.0a1 (2023-03-25)

Why?
On window managers things like closing app is done through keyboard so these buttons don't appear in most of the application. Even if it appears it should be shown properly in thunderbird window.

Comment 3

[05kraken]

Attachment: Firefox browser in window manager.

No close, minimize, maximize button is there in firefox nightly browser on a window manager.

Comment 4

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Mike, does this reproduce for you?

Comment 5

[Mike Cloaked]

On my arch Linux systems, running all the recent Thunderbird Betas in the Plasma desktop under Wayland, for a long time, including 114.0b2 has no problem with this at all - the Thunderbird window has the normal maximise, minimise and close icons and they function as expected. Whether this is dependent on particular theme settings, or icon set choices where a particular icon theme or choice of desktop settings may lead to a problem would need to know from from other users who may experience the issue with specific settings. Equally if the original reporter is having this issue in an arch Linux system, it may depend on specific settings - I note that the reporter is using DWM and it is possible that DWM is underlying the cause. I do know of other Arch Linux users who run Thunderbird under Gnome which also uses Wayland and the issue does not appear in that setup as far as I am aware.

Can the reporter switch DWM to a different window manager and see if the issue persists? One comment that may possibly have some relevance is that a year or so back I did have some problems with the displayed icons for Thunderbird itself which turned out to be due to a problem with the .desktop files - the only way I found at the time to fix that was to remove all desktop files and re-create them from scratch and at the time the Thunderbird icon at the top left of the Thunderbird window was showing a 'W' which was the generic Wayland icon, as well as the panel icon showing the running Thunderbird process was also a 'W' icon. It is conceivable that in the reporter's case an analogous problem could lead to issues with the max-min and close icons being not present and worth exploring whether in that case looking into the .desktop files for Thunderbird may also help find a fix (in my case I had different sets of .desktop files for stock Thunderbird that I don't use, and for Thunderbird beta, and additional files had been created when making new shortcuts for Thunderbird beta - I cleared them all out and started from scratch, and then it all worked fine). I hope this helps. (This in my case was not a Thunderbird bug but an application setup issue unrelated to the Thunderbird code)

Comment 6

[05kraken]

Attachment: Thunderbird running on awesome window manager

I tried awesome window manager with default settings and issue was reproducible. I'm sure you are aware that close, minimize and maximize buttons of a window don't appear when open inside a window manager. Previously I've shared image of how mozilla firefox look when open inside a window manager.

Comment 7

[Mike Cloaked]

As I understand it DWM is a very minimalised code for handling windows and actions on windows including closing them is usually achieved by using shortcuts of combinations of buttons presses - whether the config files can be edited to include minimise/close etc that do what you want will be down to the DWM coders, and looking into what capability DWM has. I also believe it is similar with the Awesome window manager. So if he user wants the three buttons mentioned perhaps it will be necessary to switch to a desktop environment such as Plasma or Gnome which has functional window management buttons by default. Either way, this does not look like a bug in Thunderbird, but a feature of the particular window manager chosen in managing application windows.

Comment 8

[05kraken]

Maybe it is a dwm issue but none of the application that I use show this behaviour including Firefox, Chromium etc. So it must be Thunderbird fault. Also if it trying to draw close, minimise buttons it should be visible, it should not be like blank space.

Comment 9

[05kraken]

Attachment: Chromium window in dwm

As you can see chromium is perfectly showing close, minimize buttons. So it not dwm limitation.

Comment 10

[Mike Cloaked]

Does depend on whether that functionality has been coded within DWM for those other applications, but not compatible with Thunderbird? I also note that DWM is only available within AUR and in the other extra/community repos. Also in aur there is dwm as well as dwm-git, and the latter may be more up to date than the former. Are you using the latest dwm-git?

Comment 11

[05kraken]

Yes I'm using latest dwm-6.4. I am not using aur package of dwm. Also I don't think it is dwm specific issue. Because on awesome window manager same issue was there. If you ask i can show this issue on any window manager you ask?

Comment 12

[Mike Cloaked]

I believe awesome has similar issues regarding control of running application windows to dwm. I wonder if you used a DE rather than WM if the problem would not be there? Is there a mail list or forum for dwm or awesome where you could find out if other users of those WMs have had similar issues with Thunderbird?

Comment 13

[Mike Cloaked]

One thought - did you compare the PKGBUILD and other files in the AUR versions to see if they have any specific customisation in there that could be relevant for Thunderbird window management?

Comment 14

[05kraken]

(In reply to Mike Cloaked from comment #12)

I believe awesome has similar issues regarding control of running application windows to dwm. I wonder if you used a DE rather than WM if the problem would not be there? Is there a mail list or forum for dwm or awesome where you could find out if other users of those WMs have had similar issues with Tunderbird?

I have tried xfce, and it work as expected showing all three buttons. I have posted about this issue on awesome window manager reddit forum, I will keep you updated.