Can't re-dock panels on Debian

[ScrawnyPetauro]

Hi,

Yesterday I un-docked the live preview panel by mistake. According to the manual I should just drag it at the edge of the window, which should highlight, and then the panel should re-dock. This is not happening, the window remains floating. I tried to un-dock the file browser and now I can't re-dock that either

My wife has the same problem on her laptop. We are both running Debian on different machines.

Is there a setting I can't find or something like that, or should this be flagged as a bug on github?

Thanks!

[DiapDealer]

Double-click the floating dock-widget's titlebar. It's easier than dragging and dropping.

It's not a bug, it's just tricky. Dragging dock-widgets to the right position to be and redocked has always been finicky. The trick is holding the drag until you see the background change to receive the drop. Then release.

Depending on what version of Debian you're using, the Qt provided by your repos might be more finicky than other Qt versions

[ScrawnyPetauro]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Double-click the floating dockwidget's titlebar.

hey mate! Thanks for the answer

if by "dockwidget's titlebar" you mean the titlebar of the floating window (preview, book browser, etc), it's not working either

[KevinH]

Is this with Sigil 2.0.2 or some earlier version?
Related issues exist in Qt but should have all been fixed in Qt 6.5.3.

What versions of Sigil and Qt does your system use? Use the Sigil's About menu and it will tell you.

[ScrawnyPetauro]

Originally Posted by KevinH

Is this with Sigil 2.0.2 or some earlier version?
Related issues exist in Qt but should have all been fixed in Qt 6.5.3.

What versions of Sigil and Qt does your system use? Use the Sigil's About menu and it will tell you.

Sigil 1.9.20
qt 5.15.8

This is the latest available build from Debian repo. For some reason Debian 12 (stable) is stuck at 1.9.2 but Debian 13 (Trixie) got 2.0.2

Do you guys know if/when it will be available on Debian 12, or should I just use Flathub?

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ScrawnyPetauro

hey mate! Thanks for the answer

if by "dockwidget's titlebar" you mean the titlebar of the floating window (preview, book browser, etc), it's not working either

Yes.The floating window is a QDockWidget provided by Qt. If neither of the methods work to redock it, then there must be something broken about Debian's Qt5.15.8 implementation. I've never seen the the title-bar double-click method fail on any platform before. Even on older Sigil versions.

[KevinH]

FWIW,

Qt 5.15.x had this issue on some platforms according to this Qt bug report:

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-101657

and according to that info it was never fixed in the Qt 5.15 series and instead the fix was in Qt 6.4.x

Perhaps it is related to Linux Desktops taking over title bar and Window decorations to match their Desktop theme. If so briefly changing to a different theme may help.

Alternatively, you can rename your sigil.ini file to sigil.ini.old or something similar and the floating windows should now be redocked on next start.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by ScrawnyPetauro

This is the latest available build from Debian repo. For some reason Debian 12 (stable) is stuck at 1.9.2 but Debian 13 (Trixie) got 2.0.2

Do you guys know if/when it will be available on Debian 12, or should I just use Flathub?

No idea, really. There may be some dependency preventing them from updating any further on Debian 12 and earlier (though I can't imagine what that might be). The 2+ line first showed up in Debian Unstable. 13 (Trixie) marks the first official stable Debian version where 2+ made an appearance.

The Flathub version has its own limitations (though we have nothing to do with preparing/distributing the Flathub version of Sigil). Some third-party python Sigil plugins have problems running in Flathub's sandbox.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by KevinH

FWIW,

Qt 5.15.x had this issue on some platforms according to this Qt bug report:

https://bugreports.qt.io/browse/QTBUG-101657

and according to that info it was never fixed in the Qt 5.15 series and instead the fix was in Qt 6.4.x

Perhaps it is related to Linux Desktops taking over title bar and Window decorations to match their Desktop theme. If so briefly changing to a different theme may help.

Alternatively, you can rename your sigil.ini file to sigil.ini.old or something similar and the floating windows should now be redocked on next start.

If that's the case, then the only way I know of to redock those widgets would be to delete the MainWindow geometry from the Sigil.inI file (with Sigil closed). That's after trying your less drastic theming suggestion, that is.

[ScrawnyPetauro]

Hey all! Sorry I didn't get to answer before now. If it's ever helpful to anybody else, just start a new session with Gnome Xorg and that will allow you to re-dock without issues

If anybody needs instructions:
> boot or log out
> click on your user
> in the bottom-right corner there is a gear icon, click and choose Gnome Xorg

done!

[DiapDealer]

What desktop environment were you using before switching to Gnome? You might be able to get by without actually changing DEs by tricking Qt into believing you're using something else. Launching sigil from a command-line using something like:

`XDG_CURRENT_DESKTOP=XFCE sigil`

has been used to bypass the KDE platform theme plugin with success in the past.

[ScrawnyPetauro]

I am on GNOME, but gnome standard doesn't work, while it does through a xorg instance.

Just wanted to point this out in case people are not handy with the command line and just want a quick fix

[DiapDealer]

No problem. It sounds like it's probably a Wayland thing, maybe. Which is unfortunately not surprising. Do you have the qtwayland5 package installed by chance? You might try it, if not. You could also try:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM="wayland;xcb" sigil

which should use the xcb qt plugin if the wayland qt plugin is unavailable.

You could also try forcing the issue with:

QT_QPA_PLATFORM="xcb" sigil

if the wayland qt plugin is installed, but doesn't behave correctly RE docking widgets.