--- a/QTfrontend/ui/widget/mapContainer.cpp	Sat Apr 28 00:08:12 2012 -0400
+++ b/QTfrontend/ui/widget/mapContainer.cpp	Sat Apr 28 09:25:30 2012 +0200
@@ -117,7 +117,8 @@
 
     //gbThemes->setStyleSheet("padding: 0px"); // doesn't work - stylesheet is set with icon
     mapLayout->addWidget(gbThemes, 0, 2, 3, 1);
-
+    // disallow row to be collapsed (so it can't get ignored when Qt applies rowSpan of gbThemes)
+    mapLayout->setRowMinimumHeight(2, 13);
     QVBoxLayout * gbTLayout = new QVBoxLayout(gbThemes);
     gbTLayout->setContentsMargins(0, 0, 0 ,0);
     gbTLayout->setSpacing(0);