GUI/Usability bug: UI in Xubuntu cannot handle large font sizes

A: There is obviously something wrong here. The input field for the search bar is huge compared to the rest of the page. The text on the three links at the bottom is too small. This does not look good.

B: There is something wrong with the icons here. Some of the icons follow the chosen icon set. Some does not. This is a consistency problem. Also it is a problem that some of the icons are small and some are big. Why not the same sizes? And why do SOME icons resize when text size is increased, while others do not?

I hope we can find a way to solve these issues.

Thank you for reporting this issue. I can confirm the issues with changing font size.

A, C, E. Selecting Applications -> Settings -> Panels allows you to change the panel size. This fixes the font issues in the top and bottom panels. If the panel is too small for the font, it does not show all of the text. I can agree that having the panel change size automatically with the font change would be nice.

"log out/log in" allowed the fonts to change on the desktop icons. This should be expected behavior, since the desktop settings are changed for the user.

B. When the text in the window title bar is grown, how do you keep the window from being pushed off the screen? My old 17" crt monitor does not show the entire window as it is, when the text is large, due to the limited screen resolution.

D. Again, "log out/log" in will correct this issue.

The second screen dump shows a web page. If the page is fixed, the desktop is not going to affect it.

> "log out/log in" allowed the fonts to change on the desktop icons.
> This should be expected behavior, since the desktop settings are
> changed for the user.

If log out/log in is required for the changes to take effect, shouldn't the user be informed of this?
I can not see why this should be expected. Why should the user expect that the changes does not take effect immediately?

> B. When the text in the window title bar is grown, how do you
> keep the window from being pushed off the screen? My old 17" crt
> monitor does not show the entire window as it is, when the text is
> large, due to the limited screen resolution.

I'm not really sure, what you are asking. I have not done anything special to prevent windows from being pushed off the screen.
I use a 15" laptop monitor on a Thinkpad T61p running at 1920x1200... Is this information of any help?

> D. Again, "log out/log" in will correct this issue.

Again, I cannot see why the user should not be informed of this? Also, I cannot really see why it should not be considered a usability bug, that the user cannot change font size without logging out and logging in again?

> The second screen dump shows a web page. If the page is
> fixed, the desktop is not going to affect it.

The second screen dump does not only show a web page. It also illustrates a bug with icons in Firefox. Please look at "B". This is not related to a web page.

Maybe I should clarify what I mean by "A" in the second screen dump. I am aware that changing desktop font size does not affect the web page. However, the form elements in the web page is apparently affected by the font size change. So, I think that the web page should be designed to handle this. This should be possible. I understand that the customized Google search page is a developed by the Ubuntu team, so I think it is fair to report it as a bug here. I also think that this is not a completely minor bug, considering that this web page is the first web page a first-time user sees when she opens Firefox.

Almost all points listed are fixed since Xfce 4.8. The remaining one is B: you still have to change the settings for some applications separately (terminal, window manager), because xfce is modular, and for these apps it makes sense to be able to use different settings (i.e. you do not want the same font on the desktop and in xfce4-terminal).