Using Inkscape on the Eee PC with openSUSE

After getting the Eee PC installed with openSUSE using the USB installation method (http://en.opensuse.org/SuSE_install_from_USB_drive), I'm now trying to use the Eee PC as what a 'normal' user would (versus a power user/developer). What I've found out in the short period of usage is that the application Inkscape, a vector drawing program, does not work quite well out of the box.

Let me describe the problem more clearly. After Inkscape is started, you don't see the entire window of the application for one simple reason - there is a minimum size that the program is displayed with. Even if you maximize the window, what happens is that the screen will show a portion of the window. When you click on any part of the window, the screen will show the other part of the window that was hidden. This is a toggling behaviour, making it nearly impossible to click on any widget on the program.

Thankfully in Linux, you can use the ALT-button together with the left mouse click to move the window around. However, by default (assuming you've got Compiz running), the title bar of the window cannot go above the top of the screen. This makes it impossible for you to move the window above the screen to see the hidden part of the application. To remove this default behaviour, you need to use the gconf-editor program.

To start gconf-editor, you can search for it in the list of applications if you are using the SLAB menu. If you are using the old-styled menu, you can find this program at Applications > System > Configuration > GNOME Configuration Editor. The easiest way to me is to simply press ALT-F2 to start the Run Application dialog box and type in the dialog box "gconf-editor" without the quotes.

After gconf-editor is started, you use its search function to search for the keyword "constrain". This will bring up two results:

/apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y

and

/schemas/apps/compiz/plugins/move/allscreens/options/constrain_y

What I did was simply double-click on the first result (the one with /apps) and un-check the box under the Value column. This will allow you to move any window above the top of the screen.

I have not figured out how to do this in KDE though. Will write a post about this if I manage to find it.