I cannot detach modal dialogs, e.g. about or preferences window of nautilus from the main window of nautilus. This happens for other gkt4 applications like gnome text editor.
Relevant System Information
no special configuration
Error Messages / Logs
no error
What I’ve Tried
The problem is that back in the days one of the members here had given me the right direction, which I do not remember exactly, because it was back in the ubuntu forums, yet more or less it had to do with the following:
tweaks->windows->click actions->attach modal dialogs to off or
dconf->org->gnome->mutter set attach modal dialogs to off
Yet now this solution doesn’t seem to work, and from my research I came across that now the modal dialogs are hard coded so as to be “glued” to parent window.
Do you have by any means any proposal/idea on how to disable this attachment, if possible, of parent-child window? I really want to be able to move freely the window in front. Luckily this doesn’t happen for applications like libreoffice…
And just to whine a little: I do understand that in current generation of gnome and ubuntu, some windows are required to be on top of others due to operating conditions. Yet, why to disable the feature to move them freely and be able to see underneath as we used to for a quarter of a century or so? Whine ends.
This is an upstream decision of the Gtk developers (I find it awful as well)…
There should be an option hidden in gsettings… you can either check if the gnome-tweaks tool has a toggle for it or if you prefer the cmdline you can run:
gsettings set org.gnome.mutter attach-modal-dialogs false
thank you for your response. Unfortunately such a command doesn’t work, at least under ubuntu 26.04. Glad that I’m not the only one finding this configuration “slightly” annoying.
Some similar commands that I have tried and didn’t work:
gsettings set org.gnome.shell.overrides attach-modal-dialogs false
dconf write /org.gnome.shell.overrides/attach-modal-dialogs false
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences actionable-modal-dialogs false 2>/dev/null || true
This is an upstream decision, and as far as I can tell, Canonical has no influence on it.
Just today, I filed a bug report for GNOME, which was quickly rejected along with a denial that anything has changed. It’s worth reading the comments in the bug report for some finer detail.
It’s an awful decision, and I hate it.
I understand why Wayland has replaced X11, but not why the ability to detach modal dialogues has been removed.
No, it was not rejected. It was marked as duplicate of another bug report. Which is pretty normal practice in every software project.
Speaking about Nautilus, the merge request referenced in your bug report appears to be merged in GNOME 50 which is included in 26.04. So, I would say it should be addressed on Ubuntu bug tracker as there could be some downstream patches affecting it.
For Control Center the change is in GNOME 51. Whether it can be included in 26.04 is again up to Ubuntu to decide.
@paddylandau : thank you very much. I’m not the only one facing this issue.
@avb66: I tried your suggestion and it is working for some windows. I do not know how to tell the difference between windows that are attached and the ones that they do not.
@avb66 and @corradoventu : If you open nautilus and on the right hand side you press the button with the three parallel horizontal lines stacked on top of each other (on the right hand side of the word Files) a new menu will appear. If you click from there the Preferences option, a new window/dialogue/modal/menu… will appear which is glued to the main window of nautilus. This wasn’t the case before. This preferences window doesn’t have the icon of a square and an arrow pointing diagonally up right so at to make it detachable.
I logged into Ubuntu 24.04 in X11 session and I see exactly the same behavior in Nautilus - the Preferences or Properties dialogues are not detachable. They are re-sizable though, also beyond the parent windows size, likewise is the keyboard selection dialogue mentioned in the linked bug reports, both in X11 and Wayland.
I do not see how it is related to Wayland vs. X11 in any way.
I do not think that it is nautilus only related. I think that it is gtk4 apps related. The same thing happens for gnome text editor (not gedit), calculator, rescourses, extension manager, e.t.c.. I’m testing it under ubuntu 26.10 beta.
what do you mean upstream? The report from paddylandau doesn’t suffice?
Whining starts here:
Now I do not want to open a discussion, yet I do understand that some things are happening because of evolution.
Yet one thing that I liked for so many years compared to a windows system, was that all the windows were separated from one to the other and not only that, but you could click on any of them to come in front.
I’m trying to understand this “evolution” and that some functions should be replaced with others, so for example in this case the window on top cannot be placed underneath/below the parent window, because it affects the operation of the latter. I cannot understand though, why it cannot be moved around.
There are some decisions from “above” like the deprecation of desktop icons, removal of year view from calendar, which even though seem to be in the right direction I think that are not and are removing aspects which really make things annoying.
In nautilus if you do right-click on the main window or on a folder and then select “Properties” the window have the icon of a square and an arrow pointing diagonally up right so at to make it detachable.
So the problem is not generic with gkt4 applications but just a bug in nautilus and other apps.
