Ubuntu
xfce4-settings package

Giant text and (some) giant icons

Bug #1297893 reported by Nick Burch
6
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
xfce4-settings (Ubuntu)
Opinion
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

I've just upgraded to 14.04, from 13.10, and suddenly all my text and most of my icons are now giant!

If you look at the attached photo, you can see the text is huge, most icons are huge, but a few icons (eg the close / minimise / maximise ones at the top right of the firefox screen) are shown correctly. Previously, before the upgrade, everything displayed at a sensible size

The screen is a LG TV, connected over VGA. xrandr shows that it's working in the correct (highest, native) resolution:

$ xrandr
Screen 0: minimum 8 x 8, current 1920 x 1080, maximum 8192 x 8192
VGA-0 connected primary 1920x1080+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 160mm x 90mm
   1920x1080 60.0*+
   1280x1024 60.0
   1280x720 60.0
   1024x768 60.0
   800x600 60.3
   640x480 60.0 59.9
DVI-D-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-0 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)

I don't have a photo of it on 13.10, but I have found a photo of the same system (computer, TV etc) on 12.04 which should hopefully provide a guide as to roughly what size I would expect text and icons to be!

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 14.04
Package: xfwm4 4.11.1-2ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.13.0-19.40-generic 3.13.6
Uname: Linux 3.13.0-19-generic i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
ApportVersion: 2.13.3-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
Date: Wed Mar 26 14:30:09 2014
SourcePackage: xfwm4
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

Revision history for this message
Nick Burch (ubuntu-gagravarr) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Nick Burch (ubuntu-gagravarr) wrote :
Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)
affects: xfwm4 (Ubuntu) → xfce4-settings (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

I assume that you are running the Xfce desktop environment. Please check if the font size and DPI value are set correctly (Settings Manager > Appearance > Fonts).

http://docs.xfce.org/xfce/xfce4-settings/appearance#fonts

Revision history for this message
Nick Burch (ubuntu-gagravarr) wrote :

When I go to Settings Manager > Appearance > Fonts, "Custom DPI Setting" is not enabled, and a value of 95 is shown greyed out. If I click to enable "Custom DPI Setting", then suddenly it all displays correctly. If I then un-check it, it remains displaying correctly.

If I log out with "Custom DPI Settings" having been checked and then unchecked, then on log in again it is back to giant fonts

If I log out with "Custom DPI Settings" left checked and with the default value (95), then when I log in again it displays correctly

So, I have a workaround, but something does seem to have been broken in the upgrade from 13.10 to require that "Custom DPI Settings" be enabled

Revision history for this message
Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

The default setting is to override the automatic calculation done by the system and and use the standard value (96 DPI). Your custom value indicates that you have already tried to change the DPI value at some point in the past. However, existing user configurations will not be altered during an upgrade from release X to Y.

So, does this problem affect all available user accounts? What about new accounts?

Revision history for this message
Nick Burch (ubuntu-gagravarr) wrote :

I've just created a brand new user account, and logged in with it. Fonts and icons are giant for this new user too

Revision history for this message
Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

After reading bug 1164379 I suggest that you file a bug report on the Xfce bug tracker and request a change of the xsettings configuration file to enable "custom DPI setting" by default.

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/

Revision history for this message
Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount) wrote :

Some old upstream discussions:

https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3164
https://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4374

Thaddaeus Tintenfisch (thad-fisch-deactivatedaccount)
Changed in xfce4-settings (Ubuntu):
status: New → Opinion
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