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In the present GNOME 2.x desktop, it is a major burden trying to resize a window's size (e.g., placing the cursor in the lower right corner to increase or decrease the dimensions of the window). It is difficult to get the cursor to perform this action in GNOME 2.x.

I'm really hoping the developers address this critical function and make window-resizing workable with Unity.

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Yes, resizing windows is improving quite a bit with Natty. In previous versions of Ubuntu, windows are difficult to resize because the window border of the default Ambiance theme is extremely thin and hard to click accurately (1 pixel wide, compared to ~8 pixels in Windows 7). Natty is dropping the border completely, but the windows will actually be easier to resize thanks to an invisible 5-pixel border. Additionally, all windows will have a draggable grip area in the bottom-right corner.

If that doesn't take care of the issue, I'd recommend browsing Metacity themes on Gnome-Look for one with a thicker border. Alternatively, you can easily edit any theme to make the border thicker and easier to click.

It's also possible to hold down the alt key, then middle-click-and-drag with the mouse to resize a window, even on versions of Ubuntu prior to Natty.

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    IMHO, alt + middle button is perfect, once you know about it. Trying to hit the thin border is hopeless, making the border thicker is wasting area, grip area sounds good but I wonder what problems it leads to.
    – maaartinus
    Mar 14, 2011 at 13:17
  • @maaartinus, I do like their idea about invisible borders that can be resized, but I agree -- once you know about alt + middle-click, you can never go back. :)
    – Michael Martin-Smucker
    Mar 14, 2011 at 13:21
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    I know about alt + middle click and use it predominately because I can't get the mouse to work to resize. But it requires using two hands and I find I often would like to be able to resize using just one hand.
    – Nick
    Mar 14, 2011 at 14:01
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    It's practically impossible to use Alt + middle-click on laptops.
    – Nick
    Mar 14, 2011 at 15:14
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    @MichaelMS Here's a blog post from Neil on the issue if you want to incorporate it into your answer: njpatel.blogspot.com/2011/03/of-borders-and-shadows.html
    – Jorge Castro
    Mar 14, 2011 at 15:17
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we have a new resize grip in natty.

enter image description here

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  • ... which is great, when it works. But many applications, including the terminal (in current Oneiric) don't have a resize grip, so you have to grab the tiny border.
    – poolie
    Aug 22, 2011 at 0:01
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No, it was still hard in Natty, and as of August 2011 it's still hard in Oneiric.

Some windows have grab handles, some don't. Sometimes you can use Alt-middlebutton. Some windows have a resize area larger than the visible border, but this doesn't work on unity-2d and perhaps not in some other cases.

Vote up bug 160311 (but don't add me-too comments.)

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