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KDE Window rules (kwin?) are very helpful when windows just don’t align to your wishes, especially on small displays like Steam Deck or when your games launch positioned wrong or your gamescope fullscreen flag just gets ignored.

First step is opening LC_ALL=C.UTF-8 systemsettings, scrolling down to Apps & Windows where there is Window Management which opens a sidebar with Window Rules.

Alternatively one can just second click any titlebar, choose more actions and select either Window specific special settings or App specific special settings (backtranslated from Finnish).

Automaattinen sisällysluettelo / Automatically generated Table of Contents

• Gamescope
• All apps
• FanFicFare
• GNOME Console

Gamescope

My first papercut that I thought for a longer time on Fedora Kinoite (instead of SteamOS) on Steam Deck was that my games with Heroic Launcher were focusing wrong, partially across the screen. A few times I just double clicked the titlebar to maximize it, but then I realized I can right click the window, select the more actions and make rules for the window. Of course the add rule from systemsettings would work too.

• Description: settings for gamescope
• Windows class (application): Exact match: gamescope
• Match whole window class: Yes
• Window types: All selected
• Add Property, Size & Position:
• Initial placement: Force Maximized
  • Originally I went just with this, but then I realized that I can fix gamescope ignoring --fullscreen flag with the next property:
• Add Property, Size & Position:
• Fullscreen: Apply initially Yes

All apps

My Steam Deck has a small display and I generally use it docked to TV, so why not maximize everything by another rule?

• Description: everything?
• Windows class (application): Unimportant: ``
• Match whole window class: Yes
• Window types: Normal window
• Add Property, Size & Position
• Initial placement: Force Maximized

And there is one papercut less on enjoying Fedora Kinoite on Steam Deck. I think this would also work with SteamOS, but that launches to game mode aka big display mode anyway, so it’s unnecessary.

Offtopic lifehack:

mkdir -p ~/.config/autostart/
ln -nsfv /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/com.heroicgameslauncher.hgl.desktop ~/.config/autostart/
ln -nsfv /var/lib/flatpak/exports/share/applications/com.valvesoftware.Steam.desktop ~/.config/autostart/

Next login you will autostart Heroic Games and Steam. I suggest visiting Heroic Games settings to start minimized so it will background update games and Steam settings to start in big picture mode, so you will have Steam Deck like experience even without SteamOS.

With Heroic Games your mileage may vary as some games want minimizing Steam for controller to work, others want Steam to be quit.

FanFicFare

Funnily this is the first window rule I remember making on my main laptop regarding FFF’s browser cache feature.

• Description: Calibre FFF on top
• Windows class (application): Unimportant: ``
• Match whole window class: Yes
• Window types: Normal window
• Add Property
• Window title: Exact match: Downloading metadata for stories
• Add Property, Arrangement & Access
• Keep above other windows: Force Yes

GNOME Console

I don’t remember making these settings, but they seem to be working?

• Description: Preferences for org.gnome.Console
• Windows class (application): Exact match: kgx org.gnome.Console
• Match whole window class: Yes
• Window types: All selected
• Add Property Size & Position
• Position: Apply initially: 768 x 432
• Add Property, Size & Position
• Size: Apply initially: 768 x 432

And my GNOME Console aka kgx launches on bottom right of the display.