How to enable system title bar in Chrome to make it visible on every workspace?

Question

Starting two days ago (9/22/21) on both of my Kubuntu machines Chrome no longer displays system title bars and borders. The option in settings is enabled. Disable/re-enable/reboot hasn't fixed it. All other applications display this correctly.

My machines are both Kubuntu. lsb_release -a says Ubuntu 20.04.3 LTS. Chrome is 94.0.4606.61.

I've received no responses on the KDE-users list. On the Gentoo list the one person who responded said he also didn't have the system title bar but when he reenabled the feature and for him it works.

Using the system title bar allows Chrome to be pinned to all virtual desktops which I need for media. In the immediate term I'm using Firefox for that purpose but would prefer to use Chrome.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Solution

Right click on the Chrome title bar, and check Use system title bars and borders (I tested this on Chromium in XFCE, but it should work on Chrome in KDE too).

^{Before enabling title bar}

Now the title bar is there, and you can make it visible in every workspace.

^{After enabling title bar}

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Background

Chrome is a GTK app. Like most other GTK apps it switched to CSD (client side decoration) in the recently released version 94. Now it draws its own title bar, instead of using the title bar provided by KDE Plasma.

Answer 2

Per Google this is a new issue from 94

From Reddit, here is a (temporary) quick fix:

• Ensure that "Use system title bar and borders" is set
• Go to chrome://flags
• Find the "use-ozone-platform" setting and change it from "default" to "disabled"
• Relaunch Chrome

Answer 3

Google Chrome beta works OK so hopfully when it migrates to stable this fault will be gone.

Answer 4

My answer is specifically for KDE but I suspect other desktop environments has similar capabilities.

SystemSettings->Shortcuts->KWin->Keep Window on All Desktop

and program it to something. I chose Meta+a (Windows key and a for 'all')

It appears to work for all app and it's a toggle.

Answer 5

The setting can be easily changed by right-click on the title bar. If not, here is another way:

The setting is controlled by a boolean custom_chrome_frame in ~/.config/google-chrome/Default/Preferences.

If it is false, then the system title bar will be used; if is true, it is customed by the browser. I suggest that before changing the boolean, the browser should be closed, otherwise the file may be modified by the browser.

It works for chrome (~/.config/google-chrome), chromium (~/.config/chromium), and MS edge (~/.config/microsoft-edge). And it seems to be the only way to bring the custom title bar back.