How to move dark rectangle in headline of PaloAlto theme after changing the sidebar width?

Question

I'm currently using the beamer PaloAlto theme with a headline and sidebar on each slide. I used the command \setbeamersize{sidebar width left=1.7cm} to fit the table of contents in the sidebar. The command changes the width of the sidebar, but it doesn't change the width of the darker area in the upper left corner of the slide where the sidebar overlaps the headline. I was wondering what parameters I need to change to make the width of the dark overlap area the same as the width of the sidebar?

Answer 1

The sidebar outer theme uses \beamer@sidebarwidth to calculate this width in the headline template, so you'll have to redefine it. Add to the preamble

\makeatletter
\setlength\beamer@sidebarwidth{1.7cm}
\makeatother

A complete example:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme[sidebar]{PaloAlto}

\setbeamersize{sidebar width left=1.7cm}

\makeatletter
\setlength\beamer@sidebarwidth{1.7cm}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
test
\end{frame}

\end{document}

Of course, it's better to define a new length and use this length to modify both widths consistently:

\documentclass{beamer}
\usetheme[sidebar]{PaloAlto}

\newlength\sidebarwd
\setlength\sidebarwd{1.7cm}

\setbeamersize{sidebar width left=\sidebarwd}

\makeatletter
\setlength\beamer@sidebarwidth{\sidebarwd}
\makeatother

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
test
\end{frame}

\end{document}