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[SOLVED] Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

I am running Artix Mate on a 12 years old  (I know!!!!) Fujitsu with DualCore 2 and 8 GB ram, with the latest update a few days ago. 

All worked fine after update, but yesterday i fumbled while organizing my desktop  and ended up with a scaling of the screen that would not allow me to change things because the choices were outside the screen.  My solution was to logout and log into lxqt  and then I could change things and went back and forth between the two desktops trying to make sense of it all.  I finally did get most things under control, but now my icons are quite large and the icon size choice in the desktop setting is not working.   I have tried rebooting, moving to lxqt and  all the different icon sizes without success-  I was able to manually reduce the size of all icons, but that is not a good solution in my opinion, so I reversed the icons to the system established size. 

Any suggestion on how to try fixing this will be much appreciated. 

I have been using Artix as my preferred distro for a couple weeks now  and it has been very satisfying.  I like your style.

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #1 –
Quote from: wanwalk – on
now my icons are quite large and the icon size choice in the desktop setting is not working.  
What did you use exactly? This description is very vague. There is no "desktop setting" in MATE. The only vaguely related icons in MATE Control Center are "Appearance Preferences", where I don't see any option to change icon size, and "Monitor Preferences", which only has "Scaling" radio group, with  three options: "auto detect", "100%" and "200%". Right clicking the desktop gives "Change Desktop Background" menu option, which leads to the "Background" tab of the "Appearance Preferences".

Quote from: wanwalk – on
I was able to manually reduce the size of all icons,
How?

Edit: If you mean "Desktop Preferences" application in LXQt, and its corresponding "Icon size" combo box, it corresponds to the DesktopIconSize setting inside the [Desktop] section in ~/.config/pcmanfm-qt/lxqt/settings.conf. That file needs to be edited when LXQt is not running, so if you are inside GUI, logout to your DM, then press Ctrl+Alt+F2 to go to tty2 and login through getty. Then use a text editor like vi, vim, nano etc. to edit that file. When you log into LXQt next time, icons will be corresponding size. The said combo box in LXQt's "Desktop Preferences" application won't reflect the size set only if you didn't enter one of the supported values listed in that combo box, but selecting one of the values and pressing "Apply" or "OK" should successfully set it.

Thread is not actually related to MATE.

Edit 2: As far as desktop scaling in MATE is concerned (accessed through Monitor Preferences -> Scaling, that changes the setting in dconf, called /org/mate/desktop/interface/window-scaling-factor. It's current value can be shown (from a tty or a terminal) with:
Code: [Select]
$ dconf read /org/mate/desktop/interface/window-scaling-factor
and it can be set to default value of 0 with
Code: [Select]
$ dconf write /org/mate/desktop/interface/window-scaling-factor 0
By the way, if you just press "Apply" in "Monitor Preferences" after changing "Scaling", a warning pop-up will be shown asking for confirmation to keep that setting, otherwise it will revert it on timeout (just like many resolution-setting dialogs in Windows).
 

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #2 –
Thanks for your answer and right ! :   I did not gave much detail. 

I was hoping to be able to spare readers  the trouble, as I can't be precise  about all that happened since  it was just too much.  But I can recall some details which may be the most relevant:

When I got stuck at MATE, because the scale became absurdly large - for to me unknown reason as I did not consciously do anything to that end, and I could not reach Applications, the only thing I could reach was the top panel where I was able to log out. Then I log back  but chose LQXT.  And got a decent scaling to begin with and configured  the desktop and went back to MATE, which I prefer and the scaling was finally back to normal  and could configure it but the desktop icons had remained large and then I could not resize them.

Quote
posted by strajder
What did you use exactly? This description is very vague. There is no "desktop setting" in MATE. The only vaguely related icons in MATE Control Center are "Appearance Preferences", where I don't see any option to change icon size, and "Monitor Preferences", which only has "Scaling" radio group, with  three options: "auto detect", "100%" and "200%". Right clicking the desktop gives "Change Desktop Background" menu option, which leads to the "Background" tab of the "Appearance Preferences".

in Mate:  ( translated from Swedish:) System/Settings/Apperance/Desktop/Icon size
and it this setting that is not working, no matter which value I chose.

My screen is set to a 100 scaling now.

I noticed that changes in the configuration of one desktop seemed to influence the appearance of the other , but I can not be absolutely sure.

As for manually changing the size of icons in MATE):  I  right-click on icon and choose "Change icon size".  It has to be done for one icon  at a time.

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #3 –
Quote from: wanwalk – on
in Mate:  ( translated from Swedish:) System/Settings/Apperance/Desktop/Icon size
and it this setting that is not working, no matter which value I chose.
MATE Control Center has "Appearance" under "Look & Feel" (screenshot 1), but it doesn't have the tab "Desktop" (screenshot 2).

Can you temporarily switch to English locale to give the exact names?

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #4 –
Quote from: wanwalk – on
As for manually changing the size of icons in MATE):  I  right-click on icon and choose "Change icon size".  It has to be done for one icon  at a time.
The desired setting can be found under:
System/ Control Center/ File Management/ Icon View Defaults/ Default zoom level
"Wer alles kann, macht nichts richtig"

Artix USE="runit openrc slim openbox lxde gtk2 qt4 qt5 qt6 conky
-gtk3 -gtk4 -adwaita{cursors,themes,icons} -gnome3 -kde -plasma -wayland "

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #5 –
That setting corresponds to the dconf key org.mate.caja.icon-view.default-zoom-level. All that I said above applies to that key as well, but gsettings(1) could offer more information. To list the available values:
Code: [Select]
$ gsettings range org.mate.caja.icon-view default-zoom-level
enum
'smallest'
'smaller'
'small'
'standard'
'large'
'larger'
'largest'
To reset it to the default value:
Code: [Select]
$ gsettings reset org.mate.caja.icon-view default-zoom-level
To output the current value:
Code: [Select]
$ gsettings get org.mate.caja.icon-view default-zoom-level
'standard'

For more information: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GNOME#Configuration

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #6 –
AMAZING  !

Quote
posted by Ig:
The desired setting can be found under:
System/ Control Center/ File Management/ Icon View Defaults/ Default zoom level

THANKS!  It was set to 200%!  I remember setting something to 200% sometime, but not what.

Quote
Posted by strajder

MATE Control Center has "Appearance" under "Look & Feel" (screenshot 1), but it doesn't have the tab "Desktop" (screenshot 2).

Can you temporarily switch to English locale to give the exact names?

I am attaching images of the meny  and the window it opens (in english) for the sake of eventual curiosity:


Thank you all for the fantastic support.   I am an irredeemable distro-hopper, but Artix has become my preferred daily use distro  the last few months and I think I will invest  more time in learning it . I like the ease of install, update and use. And open-RC.  X

Re: Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #7 –
Can anyone please help me mark this as SOLVED ?

Re: [SOLVED] Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #8 –
It was marked as solved less than 3 seconds after i posted my question...  I am curious about the technology!  Can it be some algorythm reacting  to the word SOLVED in my question ??????

Re: [SOLVED] Can't change desktop icon size on MATE

Reply #9 –
Quote from: wanwalk – on
It was marked as solved less than 3 seconds after i posted my question...  I am curious about the technology!  Can it be some algorythm reacting  to the word SOLVED in my question ??????
It's called "a moderator happened to be online at that exact time". For future reference, you can edit your initial post and change the topic yourself.