Make Chromium use System Title Bar and Borders

[probonopd]

Click on top of browser window and activate 'Use system Title Bar and Borders' - how to do this as part of the system-wide preconfiguration?

[probonopd]

Use a master_preferences file but how exactly?

[grahamperrin]

Discovering the preference

1. Launch Chromium without the required appearance
2. in a terminal window
3. cd ~/.config/chromium/Default
4. cp Preferences ~/Desktop/chromium-titlebar-disabled.json
5. give Chromium the required appearance then return to the terminal
6. cp Preferences ~/Desktop/chromium-titlebar-enabled.json
7. compare the two files.

Whilst simple output from diff(1) might not help, something with a GUI will.

% pkg rquery '%o %v %R' meld
textproc/meld 3.20.1,1 FreeBSD
% 

custom_chrome_frame

It's a boolean preference in a JSON file that does not have a .json suffix.

~/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences

Hint

After you finish with the ~/Desktop copies of the file, set one aside for future reference. With the .json suffix, it might be usefully viewed in Firefox, or any other application that's capable of presenting a human-friendly view.

[grahamperrin]

Writing the preference before a first run of Chromium

Experiment 001

Essentially:

1. quit Chromium
2. cd ~/.config/ then set aside your usual Chromium configuration directory
3. create a path
4. write the preference alone to the preference file alone.

mv chromium chromium.setaside
cd
mkdir -p ~/.config/chromium/Default
echo "{"custom_chrome_frame":true}" > /usr/home/grahamperrin/.config/chromium/Default/Preferences
chrome

There's the title bar, however:

• the screenshot was preceded by a Chromium error dialogue about a corrupt profile.

The next run of Chromium was error-free.

Housekeeping

Quit Chromium then put back your usual stuff.

cd ~/.config
mv chromium.setaside chromium.putthisback && rm -r chromium && mv chromium.putthisback chromium
cd 

[grahamperrin]

#45 (comment)

Use a master_preferences file but how exactly?

I don't know.

Strict searches such as this find plenty of discussion, but (at a glance) nothing about pre-configuration:

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22custom_chrome_frame%22+preset%7Cpreconfigure%7Cdefault&tbs=li%3A1#unfucked

https://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=hier(7) draws attention to:

/usr/share/skel

https://www.google.com/search?q=%2B%22%2Fusr%2Fshare%2Fskel%22+%2BChromium+%2BPreferences&tbs=li%3A1#unfucked&tbs=qdr:y finds nothing.

If there's a Linux equivalent to /usr/share/skel then a Linux-oriented search might find examples of people who truly do wish to preconfigure Chromium (or Chrome) …

[probonopd]

If there's a Linux equivalent to /usr/share/skel

Use the search, Luke!

Ours is at
https://github.com/helloSystem/ISO/tree/experimental/overlays/uzip/hello/files/usr/share/skel

[grahamperrin]

… this is open for anyone to be Luke :-)

[grahamperrin]

Not effective with hello-0.3.0_0C155-FreeBSD-12.1-amd64.iso.

First run, after installation:

[probonopd]

Too bad it didn't work so far. If anyone ever finds out how to preconfigure this, please let us know.

In the meantime we are shipping Falkon which uses the Global Menu out of the box.

[ghost]

Why would we want chromium?

[probonopd]

Chrome extensions/plugins like uBlock Origin do not work in Falkon. And the Linux version of Chromium is useful for people who need Widevine DRM.

[ghost]

Couldn't firefox be used? Or am I missing something.

…

On Fri, 16 Jul 2021, 19:56 probonopd, ***@***.***> wrote: Chrome extensions/plugins like uBlock Origin do not work in Falkon. And the Linux version of Chromium is useful for people who need Widevine DRM. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#45 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AKFATAO7P54JWUVVJACL5N3TYBXDXANCNFSM4T5FI7KQ> .

[probonopd]

It could, but it is ugly as hell and recently got worse.

[ghost]

I haven't tested this, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11505767/how-can-i-set-chrome-to-use-system-titlebars-and-border-in-preferences-file

[grahamperrin]

this

custom_chrome_frame is above.

[probonopd]

Ah right @grahamperrin. I was thinking of the Global Menu. Haven't seen a working solution on FreeBSD for that yet.

[probonopd]

This as /usr/share/skel/dot.config/chromium/Default/Preferences seems to do the trick:

{
   "browser":{
      "custom_chrome_frame":false
   }
}

There are probably other aspects in this file that would be worth customizing.

[probonopd]

Feel free to comment here in case the issue is not fixed properly.
Thanks for your help @grahamperrin.