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Dragging windows around with alt-click has always been one of my favorite features on a linux desktop: no need to aim at the window title to drag, just press alt, click anywhere within the window and drag.

This seems to be disabled in gnome 3 / gnome-shell in debian testing. How can I enable it? (I hope the feature still exists...)

janos
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6 Answers6

94

You can also use gnome-tweak-tool to change the key back to Alt. The option is called Modifier to use for modified window click actions or Window Action Key (in 3.10 and later versions) and is available under the Windows category. See http://www.ryanlerch.org/blog/alt-click-drag-to-move-windows-no-longer-works-in-fedora-18-gnome-3-8/. Enable it as follows:

  1. Open a terminal.
  2. Type: gnome-tweak-tool
  3. Click Windows.
  4. Set Window Action Key to: Alt
  5. Close the tool.

Alt+Drag now works.

For Gnome 3, a command-line solution that may be used in scripts:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences mouse-button-modifier '<Alt>'
Dave Jarvis
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pelle
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I have also used this feature regularly in Gnome on Fedora, and was disappointed or frustrated that it seemed to have disappeared as of Fedora 18. All is not lost, it's just moved one key over!

What used to be Alt+drag is now Super+drag. Super is the Windows/Apple/Meta key next to the Alt key on most keyboards. In the process of finding that, I also discovered that Super+middle button+drag resizes windows (which apparently used to work with Alt too, but I never knew about it).

Andrew Lott
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Scott
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8

This did what I needed:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/mouse_button_modifier --type string "<Alt>"

I figured it out based on another question: Gnome3 - Change window drag shortcut

It seems that alt-click-drag is usually enabled and I found several questions wanting to disable it. My case was the opposite. The feature was disabled, and I really wanted to enable it.

UPDATE

This solution worked for Gnome 3.0 in 2012 June, and it no longer works today. See the other answer I linked above, the answer seems to have updated more recently, or @STW's comment below.

Community
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janos
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6

Running Gnome version 3.14.0 on OpenSUSE 13.2, here. To perform the Alt-drag capability out-of-the-box, use Super+drag.

naisanza
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3

For everyone who wants to script this, try the following:

dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/wm/preferences/mouse-button-modifier '"<Alt>"'

Note the quotes-in-quotes -- the GVariant format requires strings to be quoted.

Matt Winter
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Just these two lines will do, for the default Gnome session, and will take effect right away:

gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences mouse-button-modifier '<Alt>'
gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.wm.preferences resize-with-right-button true

The defaults in Gnome were changed to avoid conflicts the design crowd - to Super + drag for drag and Super + middle click to resize.

Dagelf
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