(Linux, KDE Plasma) Can I make the titlebar thinner?

[j4cobgarby]

On my system (Linux, DE=KDE Plasma, ghostty config copied below), my titlebar is wider than I'd like; it looks inconsistent with the other titlebars on my screen. Here's how it looks when using default titlebar config:

If I set gtk-adwaita=false I get the same style of toolbar as my "normal" windows, but it's still very thick:

For reference, here's how a "normal" window looks (notice how there's far less padding around the titlebar buttons).

So, I assume the difference is due to ghostty wanting to put some extra icons in the titlebar? But since it doesn't do this when gtk-adwaita=false, I'm not sure why it's still so thick then.

I also tried modifying the GTK css (~/.config/gtk-4.0/gtk.css) with the following:

headerbar {
    padding: 2;
    margin: 0;
}

headerbar .title {
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
}

But it made no difference.

I can't find any relevant config option to change this. Does anyone know of any hack to get around this, or even which part of the source code I would have to modify to change this myself?

Thanks!

[pluiedev]

This is because Ghostty, as a GTK app, defaults to disabling system-wide decorations (so-called "server-sided decorations" or SSD) in favor of drawing the header bar and other UI elements by itself (aka "client-sided decorations" or CSD).

Support for SSDs have been added in #4724 but it has not landed in stable yet. If you update to the latest tip version, then you can enable this via window-decoration = server. We might consider making SSDs the default on non-GNOME desktop environments in the future.

[j4cobgarby]

If you update to the latest tip version, then you can enable this via window-decoration = server.

Thanks, this sounds promising. Unfortunately, when I compile and run from the latest commit I get an immediate crash before the window even opens. I'll try again later today when I have a bit more time.

[moderation]

@j4cobgarby You may need the compilation flag documented at #4759 (comment). I was getting a crash on Tumbleweed and this fixed it for me

[j4cobgarby]

Thanks @moderation, that did indeed work. Now I can confirm that the answer @pluiedev gave was correct and now I get my normal KDE titlebar on ghostty :)