My Tiny Preferences Box Cannot be Resized

[jazinja]

Hello,
I am new to Inkscape, using OS El Capitan 10.11.6. When I go to "Edit"  "Preferences" or press shift control P the dialogue box which opens up is tiny and impossible to use. In the top left corner of the box there is the usual red circle for closing the window and the amber circle for minimising the window, but the third circle, usually green for maximising, is grey and can't be clicked on. There is an icon in the bottom right hand corner which looks like it should maximise the box, but it is unresponsive when clicked on. Is this a bug, or am I missing something? Any help gratefully appreciated.

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

There's one more way of opening the dialog which you could try.  Double-click on any tool in the main toolbox.

I don't use a Mac, so I'm not sure what else to suggest.  On Windows, I can place my mouse over any edge of the dialog.  In this position, the normal arrow pointer changes to a 2-way arrow, which indicates that you can drag it bigger or smaller.

If neither of these works, it sounds like it might be a bug.  I'll try searching for bug reports, while waiting for your reply.

[jazinja]

Thanks Brynn, but no joy unfortunately. Double clicking the icon brings up the same dialogue box, but I  still can't resize it and the edges of the box cannot be stretched to resize like normal windows. I guess it's a bug. If anyone knows a work around or if reverting to an earlier  version of Inkscape might help then please let me know. Thanks

[Moini]

Sometimes, the border part where a dialog can be grabbed to resize is really small, and it takes some patience to get the correct pixels with the mouse.

That said, to work around this, you can open your preferences file (location should be indicated in Edit -> Preferences -> System: User preferences), and look for this part in it:

<group
       id="preferences"
       state="1"
       panel_size="1"
       panel_ratio="100"
       panel_mode="1"
       panel_wrap="0"
       panel_border="0"
       page="23"
       x="206"
       y="206"
       w="867"
       h="590" />

The numbers are probably different for you, but id="preferences" is the term you're looking for. Change the numbers behind w (width) and h (height). Don't remove any quotation marks or brackets.

[brynn]

Oh good, I'm glad Moini answered.  I found one ancient bug report, about a too large dialog.  But not worth mentioning now. 

Also I was going to ask if you're using a hi dpi screen.  It seems a lot of parts of Inkscape are too small with that kind of screen.

Anyway, hopefully you can fix from Moini's instructions.  Let us  know?

[jazinja]

Thanks Moini, but the preferences box is the one that I can't use. I think it is a high dpi screen, it's a mac air book 2016 model.

[brynn]

Ok, the preferences.xml file is different from the dialog.  Look in the location she indicates, to find the location of the file.  That file can control the size of the dialog.  You can edit that file as she indicates.  If you need more detailed instructions, let us know.  That's my specialty - giving detailed steps

Or you could try again to produce the arrows which adjust the size of the dialog.  Mouse very, very  slowly over the edge, and watch closely.  When you see the normal pointer change to arrow, press the mouse button and drag.

If you do have a hi dpi screen, there might be a limit to how large you can make the dialog.  Or else, there may be other things which are too small.  There's supposed to be a fix coming in the next major version release.  So if the hi dpi screen makes Inkscape too hard to use, you can get an earlier version, until it's fixed.

[jazinja]

More detailed instructions would be great. If I go to "File" "Preferences" Then the problem dialogue box appears. Definitely cannot catch the edges.

[brynn]

Ooohh, I see the problem.  Sorry about that.  I think we thought you could still read the dialog, but maybe it's too small to even read what's there?

First, close Inkscape.

Next, you need to find a file, which in Windows, is here:  C:\Users\brynn\AppData\Roaming\inkscape\preferences.xml
I don't know how that translates on a Mac, but it will be in your user directory, and not where the program is installed.  Or you could simply search your computer for a file called:  preferences.xml

Once you find that file, open it in a text editor.  Not a word processing type of editor, but a plain text editor.  Or if you write any kind of code, you could use that kind of editor.  If you're familiar with Windows, Notepad is good to use.  Or I use Notepad++ as a code editor, for example.

Most text editors will be able to search.  Search for:  id="preferences"    When you find it, it will look a lot like this, except the numbers in it will be different for you.  (and also except for the colors, which I added for clarity)

<group
       id="preferences"     <<----- search for this
       state="1"
       panel_size="1"
       panel_ratio="100"
       panel_mode="1"
       panel_wrap="0"
       panel_border="0"
       page="23"
       x="206"
       y="206"
       w="867"     <<-----change the number to something like 600 to 800
       h="590" />      <<-----change the number to something like 600 to 800

When you find it, you'll need to change the numbers for:  w= and h=.  Change those numbers to something bigger, like maybe 800 and 600.  Or maybe more? 

Then Save the file.  Then open Inkscape, and open the Inkscape Preferences dialog. 

Did you have success?

As I said before, if you do have a hi dpi screen, most if not all of Inkscape might be too small to use.  But I would think you'd already see that.  So maybe it's not.

[Moini]

Lol, sorry for that silly suggestion - I totally forgot about it when I described the file location... I have no idea as to the folder where 'preferences.xml' is saved on a Mac. I'd assume it's the same as on Linux, in your user home directory, so in ~/.config/Inkscape/preferences.xml.