GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 553652
Do not use DPI from the X server. Yet.
Last modified: 2011-03-04 00:35:08 UTC
Following bug 378338, we now use the real DPI for screens. That's cool, except for recent screens which have a DPI of ~120. Here's what's happening: + g-s-d computes the DPI by looking if there's something in gconf (ignoring the default value). For a new user, there's nothing. So we default on the value returned by the X server. Sounds sane so far. + then we have default values for font sizes. It's 10. Always. No matter what the DPI is. A font size of 10 is good for a DPI around 96 (the old hard-coded value). However, it results in "big" fonts for DPI around 120. So the result is that for a new user, we have ugly fonts. Quite bad. In bug #378338 comment #39, Owen proposes a logical DPI. That could be a solution. Anyway, short term, I think the sanest thing is to go back to hard-coding 96.
Vincent, I don't follow. Having real DPI is *exactly* good to have fonts that have a bigger *pixel-size*, and hence the same physical size, on higher-res screens.
Created attachment 119374 [details] Screenshot with DPI = 120 (natural DPI of my laptop)
Created attachment 119375 [details] Screenshot with DPI = 96
I'm not talking about physical size, but about looking-good size. If you look at the screenshots, the one for DPI = 96 looks better.
Font look-good is *VERY VERY VERY VERY VERY subjective. To me the 120dpi one looks much better. And indeed that's what I have on my screen.
I also suffered a similar problem and finally workarounded it forcing DPI to 96 in my xorg.conf . Maybe this is subjetive, but I also prefer how fonts look at 96 over 120 :-)
I really wonder what we can do here. The sanest thing I can imagine is to: + first have some logical DPI used by default, as proposed by Owen + and then have some zoom in/zoom out buttons easily reachable in GDM, and use the settings from GDM on the first login of the user as default values. I think it would accomodate at least most cases.
A candidate for blocking on bug 546711 I would think
Folks, the font *size* is 10 (pt) not 96/120 dpi. If you want to change the font size because you like small fonts change the 10 do not meddle with X-computed DPI! If you want a specific size in *pixels*, change the font dialog so it accepts values with a pixel unit (ie 16 px instead of 10 pt). That's all what forcing 96dpi does: make vector units a fixed pixel size by setting the conversion factor to a fake fixed value.
Nicolas, thanks for the comment. This seems to be a lost battle as far as I'm concerned... :(
commit a49af89751057649034a42c511d2330d63bbfa6e Author: Bastien Nocera <hadess@hadess.net> Date: Thu Mar 3 17:16:42 2011 +0000 xsettings: Hard-code the default DPI We cannot rely on the X server giving us a decent DPI value, and we do not want to change the DPI when the resolution changes, or when multiple monitors are attached. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643704
(In reply to comment #11) > commit a49af89751057649034a42c511d2330d63bbfa6e > Author: Bastien Nocera <hadess@hadess.net> > Date: Thu Mar 3 17:16:42 2011 +0000 > > xsettings: Hard-code the default DPI > > We cannot rely on the X server giving us a decent DPI value, > and we do not want to change the DPI when the resolution changes, > or when multiple monitors are attached. > > https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=643704 I dislike...
(In reply to comment #12) <snip> > I dislike... Feel free to dislike around a warm cup of tea with Federico and Owen. Let me know who comes out alive of that discussion.
(In reply to comment #13) > (In reply to comment #12) > <snip> > > I dislike... > > Feel free to dislike around a warm cup of tea with Federico and Owen. Let me > know who comes out alive of that discussion. Heh. Ok :)