[Geany-Users] Font too small

[Ronald Fischer]

I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.

Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.

[Lex Trotman]

Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.

You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Cheers
Lex

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.
_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Lex Trotman
Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.
You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Where do I have to create this file, so that Geany can find it? From the
file name, I guess it should go in my
"Home directory", but what is Geany assuming to by my Home on Windows?

Ronald

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.
_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users

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[Frank Lanitz]

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman
Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.
You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Where do I have to create this file, so that Geany can find it? From the
file name, I guess it should go in my
"Home directory", but what is Geany assuming to by my Home on Windows?

I guess it should be inside your .geany at %APPDATA%. Please proof me
wrong if I'm so.

Cheers,
Frank

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Frank Lanitz

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman
Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.
You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Where do I have to create this file, so that Geany can find it? From the
file name, I guess it should go in my
"Home directory", but what is Geany assuming to by my Home on Windows?

I guess it should be inside your .geany at %APPDATA%. Please proof me
wrong if I'm so.

I tried the following:

- Create a file .gitr in my %APPDATA% directory
- This file contains a single line

gtk-font-name = "Courier New 16"

- Restart Geany.

This had no visible effect. Either it's the wrong directory, or the
wrong file name, or the wrong syntax for setting the font. I got the
syntax for this from this webpage:

https://awesome.naquadah.org/wiki/Customizing_GTK_Apps

Ronald

Post by Frank Lanitz
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[Colomban Wendling]

Hi,

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman
Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.
You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Where do I have to create this file, so that Geany can find it? From the
file name, I guess it should go in my
"Home directory", but what is Geany assuming to by my Home on Windows?

%UserProfile% I think. Anyway, on Windows 8 you can put it in
C:\Users\yourself\.gtkrc-2.0

Then there put something like this:

# ugly theme, but font setting below don't seem to work with the
# default non-ugly Windows one
gtk-theme-name = "Raleigh"
# and set the font you want
gtk-font-name = "Sans 14"

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.

How have you installed Geany? GTK? On which version of Windows?
I just tried installing Geany 1.25 from the official installer on
Windows 8, and it works just fine, and looks pretty much like native apps.

Or maybe you have a HiDPI screen? If that's so, I'm afraid GTK 2.x
doesn't cope very well with this, but I think there is another workaround

Regards,
Colomban

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Colomban Wendling
Hi,

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman
Seems the theme for GTK is set too small.
You should be able to set those with the .gtkrc settings.

Where do I have to create this file, so that Geany can find it? From the
file name, I guess it should go in my
"Home directory", but what is Geany assuming to by my Home on Windows?

%UserProfile% I think. Anyway, on Windows 8 you can put it in
C:\Users\yourself\.gtkrc-2.0

I have Windows 7, but the C:\Users..... directory exists here too.

Post by Colomban Wendling
# ugly theme, but font setting below don't seem to work with the
# default non-ugly Windows one
gtk-theme-name = "Raleigh"

Do I *have* to change the theme in the .gtkrc-2.0 file? I like Geany's
"Standard" color schema and would prefer not changing it.

Post by Colomban Wendling
# and set the font you want
gtk-font-name = "Sans 14"

I guess I have to put here a real font name from my system, right?. I
used Courier New instead, but still no change.

Post by Colomban Wendling

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Lex Trotman

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.

How have you installed Geany?

From the Geany website, running geany-1.25_setup.exe .

Post by Colomban Wendling
GTK?

I'm not aware having ever installed GTK. I guess it comes bundeled with
Geany.

Post by Colomban Wendling
Or maybe you have a HiDPI screen?

How can I find out? Isn't this term only be used with Apple's Retina
display? In any case, the laptop is already a few years old, and just
has the usual resolution, so I guess the answer is "no".

Post by Colomban Wendling
If that's so, I'm afraid GTK 2.x
doesn't cope very well with this, but I think there is another workaround
Regards,
Colomban
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[Colomban Wendling]

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Colomban Wendling
[…]
# ugly theme, but font setting below don't seem to work with the
# default non-ugly Windows one
gtk-theme-name = "Raleigh"

Do I *have* to change the theme in the .gtkrc-2.0 file? I like Geany's
"Standard" color schema and would prefer not changing it.

changing the GTK theme will not change the highlighting in the editing
area but the theme of the various UI elements. E.g. instead of being
integrated with the Windows theme it'll be gray.

I guess the issue is that the default theme uses the Windows API to draw
components, and then ignores the custom font set only for GTK (as it
would use the ones set for Windows).

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Colomban Wendling
# and set the font you want
gtk-font-name = "Sans 14"

I guess I have to put here a real font name from my system, right?. I
used Courier New instead, but still no change.

"Sans" worked here as it's a virtual font meaning "the default
sans-serif font", but sure use whichever font you like.

But again, this doesn't work if using the GTK theme integrating with the
Windows theming system.

Regards,
Colomban

[Colomban Wendling]

Post by Colomban Wendling
[…]

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Colomban Wendling
# and set the font you want
gtk-font-name = "Sans 14"

I guess I have to put here a real font name from my system, right?. I
used Courier New instead, but still no change.

"Sans" worked here as it's a virtual font meaning "the default
sans-serif font", but sure use whichever font you like.
But again, this doesn't work if using the GTK theme integrating with the
Windows theming system.

Wait! I found a way, and it's even very customizable :) It's actually
the way to override specific fonts, and basically is the same we do for
existing font overrides.

Instead of setting the "gtk-font-name" setting, override the specific
widgets fonts:

For all GTK applications:

```
style "custom-font" {
font_name = "Sans 16"
}
widget_class "<GtkWindow>.*" style "custom-font"
```

or for Geany only:

```
style "custom-font" {
font_name = "Sans 16"
}
widget "GeanyMainWindow.*" style "custom-font"
widget "Geany*Dialog*.*" style "custom-font"
```

The first applies to everything inside a GTK window (e.g. everything of
every GTK applications), and the second only to Geany main window and
dialogs. Unless you have other GTK using applications that you don't
wanna change, I suggest you use the first solution that is a little
simpler will more easily adapt to e.g. windows created by plugins.

And of course, customize the "font_name" as you like.

Hope this one works (did here).

Regards,
Colomban

[Thomas Martitz]

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.
_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users

Can you please provide a screen shot so that we can evaluate if it's expected or not?

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.
_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users

Can you please provide a screen shot so that we can evaluate if it's expected or not?

Screenshot enclosed. As you can see, the text in the edit pane is easy
to read. The font for the preferences dialogue is tiny and difficult to
read.

Post by Thomas Martitz
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[Jiří Techet]

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Thomas Martitz

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.
_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users

Can you please provide a screen shot so that we can evaluate if it's expected or not?

Screenshot enclosed. As you can see, the text in the edit pane is easy
to read. The font for the preferences dialogue is tiny and difficult to
read.

Maybe I miss something but from the screenshot it looks the font is the
same size like the default system font (judging from the desktop icon names
and the Start button which have the same text size like Geany's dialogs).
How does the font look in other applications you use? I guess it will be
similarly small. Wouldn't changing default Windows font size help?

Cheers.

Jiri

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Jiří Techet

Post by Ronald Fischer

Post by Ronald Fischer
I have installed Geany 1.25 for Windows.
Different to version 1.24, the font used for, for example, the status
line and the preference dialogue, is so small that it is very difficult
for me to read it. Is there a way to change this font size? I found in
the preferences three font settings, but none of these seem to apply
here.

Screenshot enclosed. As you can see, the text in the edit pane is easy
to read. The font for the preferences dialogue is tiny and difficult to
read.

Maybe I miss something but from the screenshot it looks the font is the
same size like the default system font (judging from the desktop icon names
and the Start button which have the same text size like Geany's dialogs).

Thanks for your effort!

This is correct. I wasn't aware that Geany uses that font from the
system which is used for the desktop icons. Windows uses various font
settings - for example, defaults for the menus, defaults for the icons,
defaults for the "main" text and so on. The font for the icons can be
quite small, as long as I can decipher it. Doing this allows me to use
the screen space better. However, the "preferences" dialogue contains a
lot of text, and as such, it is pretty tedious to read it.

For example, I've set the icons to a 9 point font, and the menus,
dialogues and the main text to 11 point. I would have expected, that a
program, which allows users to already configure fonts for 3 different
purposes, would also allow to consider the font used for the user
interface, but even if this is not provided and a system font is used,
it would make sense IMHO to use this system font which is used for
dialogues, not the one used for icons, because things like setting the
preferences is more akin to a dialogue that to an icon or a QuickInfo.

The problem with a laptop is that the screen *is* physically small. This
means that one wants to make the fonts as small as possible, but they
should be still usable. In particular, fonts attached to visual symbols
- icons on the desktop, but also icons inside a program - don't need
large fonts, because we have the pictorial representation too which
helps. After all, this the whole idea of having an icon. Other text
however need to be larger, in order to be easily readable.

Post by Jiří Techet
How does the font look in other applications you use? I guess it will be
similarly small.

It seems to vary. Some (the Pale Moon browser for instance) use larger
fonts. Some (Outlook!) indeed use the same system font for the
configuration which is used for the icons. Others seem to have the
font-size hardwired. Of the editors, jedit allows to configure the font
size of the user interface, which I find very convenient. I would
appreciate, if Geany would offer too such a configuration....

Ronald

[Colomban Wendling]

Post by Ronald Fischer
[…]

Post by Jiří Techet
How does the font look in other applications you use? I guess it will be
similarly small.

It seems to vary. Some (the Pale Moon browser for instance) use larger
fonts. Some (Outlook!) indeed use the same system font for the
configuration which is used for the icons.

Hum, I'm afraid if a MS application like Outlook doesn't do as you like
it probably means Windows isn't configured as you like (if it even is
possible, I don't know).

The default theme GTK (GTK is the UI toolkit we use) uses on Windows
relies on the Windows theming API to draw the components, so it should
(unless it has bugs of course) follow what the Windows theming API
thinks is right.

BTW, how did 1.24 look? I find it odd it changed, but maybe it did as
we upgraded to a newer GTK version…

Regards,
Colomban

[Ronald Fischer]

Post by Colomban Wendling
BTW, how did 1.24 look? I find it odd it changed, but maybe it did as
we upgraded to a newer GTK version…

It used a better font for the settings dialogue, but it had a bug in
that it ignored the settings of the *editor* font (i.e. the font used to
display the text which I'm editing), and the default used was a
porportional font, which I don't like when editing programs. That was
the main reason why I upgraded to 1.25.

Ronald