ActiveState Community

UI text too big in Ubuntu 8.04

Posted by Florent V. on 2008-05-01 10:44
OS: Debian / Ubuntu

Hello,

I now use the latest Ubuntu release (8.04), and I have a small problem with the Komodo Edit interface that didn't appear with Ubuntu 7.10. Now, every bit of text that is part of the Komodo Edit UI is bigger and fatter than in any other app.

See for yourself:

(Note how text that depends on the editor is ok.)


(Note the difference between a standard gnome application menu, and the Komodo application menu.)

This is only a small problem, but I found no way of fixing this.
Did anyone notice this? Other users of Ubuntu 8.04 out there?

Quick fix
jeffg | Thu, 2008-05-01 12:10

For a quick fix, you can control how Komodo looks using css:

http://community.activestate.com/faq/customizing-the-komodo-ui

--
JeffG

Thanks, I went for the quick fix :)
Florent V. | Thu, 2008-05-01 13:38

So it seems I had 14px text for the UI, whereas Gnome is configured for a application UI font-size of 10 (don't know if that's px or pt... I think it's pt).

I created a userChrome.css file in /home/***/.komodoedit/4.3/host-***/XRE/chrome, with the following lines:

/* Trying to fix a text-is-too-big UI issue */
window, dialog, menubar, menubutton, menulist, menu, menuitem {
	font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
	font-size: 12px !important;
}

Apparently Bitstream Vera Sans is the default sans-serif font in Gnome, and I found that a 13px font-size was the closest to what other applications show... but 12px looked nicer in Komodo Edit, because I still have this anti-aliasing problem in Komodo Edit (text is blurry because of heavy anti-aliasing), so a smaller font-size looks slightly better.

re: update on this
ToddW | Tue, 2008-05-27 12:38

I've now moved to Ubuntu 8.04 too, and the default UI is quite ugly... I'm using the following variation on Florent's theme:

menubar > menu, menubar, menubutton, menulist, menuitem {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

menupopup > * {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

dialog, box, button, page, label, caption, textbox, input, select {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

window {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

menubar > menu, menubar, menubutton, menulist, menuitem {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

menupopup > * {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

dialog, box, button, page, label, caption, textbox, input, select {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

window {
  font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans", sans-serif !important;
  font-size: 12px !important;
}

my userChrome.css on Ubuntu Hardy
garakkio | Fri, 2008-05-02 01:16

after many tries, I found best dimension is 3.45mm
(I also like to change background, and a smaller tree)
Anyway, I noticed that fonts don't appear exactly like other Gnome ones

window, dialog, menubar, menubutton, menulist, menu, menuitem, tab
{
  font-size: 3.45mm !important;
  font-family: verdana !important;
}

tab
{
  font-size: 3mm !important;
}

tree
{
  background-color: #ffc !important;
  font-size: 3mm !important;
}

Proper fix?
meeb | Wed, 2008-06-18 02:36

Komodo Edit ignores my system font settings (for stuff like AA and hinting). Changing the CSS won't help there.

Firefox respects my font settings, and since Komodo Edit is built on the same foundation, I'd expect it to as well. Why doesn't it, and is there any way to sort this out? A build option or something?

re: font settings
ToddW | Wed, 2008-06-18 11:01

Which part of Komodo Edit is not respecting your font settings?

Note that the editor component of Komodo uses a plugin (Scintilla), which is not based upon the Mozilla platform, so the editor will use different font handling and AA mechanisms (same as flash does in Firefox). The rest of the Komodo UI is made of XUL/XBL and as such should respect any font settings you make (same as Firefox does).

re: font settings
meeb | Fri, 2008-06-20 03:03

Actually, the scintilla part seems to be the one part that does respect my font settings. Fonts in menus and everywhere else look wrong.

Edit: took a screenshot that shows this very clearly:

I turned off both smoothing and hinting to make my fonts look hideous.
As you can tell, KE's text area follows my settings. The menu bar, the tabs, and the status bar don't.

re: proper fix
ToddW | Fri, 2008-06-20 11:55

I think this UI (menus, trees, ...) fonts problem will only get fixed once Komodo moves onto the Mozilla 1.9 (Firefox 3) branch. Komodo 4.4 and below are all based on the Mozilla 1.8 branch (same as Firefox 2), which both display the large fonts problem on Ubuntu 8.04... which there does not seem to be any workaround apart from the userChrome.css tweaks.