CrunchBang Linux

harpoon

New Member

Registered: 2013-02-07

Posts: 4

Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

The problem:  Some applications produce screen output with font sizes too small to read.

The tale:

After a few months of toying with !# and getting close to a near perfect setup, I awoke a few days ago to find my system disk died in its sleep.  Grabbing another disk, I booted my USB key and installed Waldorf.  The install went well, but the results were a pitiful sight for my now much older eyes. 

Specifically, the fonts displayed on my 32" monitor were so small as to be unreadable.  Reconfiguring Tint2, the terminal, geany, and the menu to use a larger point size posed no problems.  Thunar refuses yield.  I have searched (almost) everywhere for a clue as to where its configuration files might be hidden, but editing those I did find with an entry relating to font size produced no change (including setting a font size in Xresources).  Other files referenced in my search are apparently nowhere to be found.  Using View>Zoom only results in expanding the size of the folder icons without any effect on the text size. (this has been noted on other forums a few times, but without a solution that I can get to work).  Using an alternate openbox theme has no effect, either.

I Installed PCManFM as a backup, but it lacks even a View>Zoom menu option.  Launching obconf from a terminal produces a window with a small font and no way to "zoom" (ctl + does nothing), so it is also nearly unusable. 

I had no such problems on the now deceased system that was getting close to perfect for my needs.  Now, without a way to reliably produce readable screen output this new install is very close to unusable. 

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I am open to trying just about anything that will let me stay with !#, which really has been great until now.

[System is an old gigabyte board with onboard intel graphics, works out of the box]

Last edited by harpoon (2013-02-08 10:29:11)

dura

Bloated Gimp

From: interzone

Registered: 2012-09-15

Posts: 2,080

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

I'm not on debian or #!, but can't you change it with lxappearance or obconf?

VDP76

#! Junkie

From: Bayreuth, Germany

Registered: 2012-04-12

Posts: 433

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

whcich #! build have you used?
if you can drop to a readable terminal session (Ctrl + Alt + F1) you could try to wget the new .iso, dd it onto a usb pen-drive and try to re-install...

Last edited by VDP76 (2013-02-07 17:04:34)

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We are a nice, friendly community here and I hope we stay that way..

moetunes

#! Member

Registered: 2012-10-06

Posts: 58

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

I set thunars font size from the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file with the line

gtk-font-name = "Liberation-Mono 6"

if that file's not there you can make it and remember to use a font you have on your system.
HTH

harpoon

New Member

Registered: 2013-02-07

Posts: 4

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

VDP76:
I installed from the newest image crunchbang-11-20130119-amd64.iso -- I created a new usb for this reinstall of waldorf so the solutions do not lie here.  Thanks for the suggestion, though.

dura:
Neither the changes to lxappearance, nor obconf, nor .Xresources had any effect on some applications, e.g. thunar, gparted, among others.

UPDATE:
There is a cludge (found on the Ubuntu forum) to make thunar usable which involves adding the following lines to the end of the .gtkrc-2.0.mine file  (yes, the .mine suffix is required for this to work, but is missing in the original post)

style "fonttweak"
{
font_name = "<font name> <font size>"
}
widget_class "*Thunar*View*" style "fonttweak"

save the file, logout, and login again.

This suggests (to me) that a similar approach might be need to be applied for each application that does not respond to more global changes.  I have not had time to experiment with this yet.

Last edited by harpoon (2013-02-08 03:05:30)

moetunes

#! Member

Registered: 2012-10-06

Posts: 58

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

I don't have any other apps that edit the ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file so I can put my edits in there. If you have other apps that edit that file you need to have a ~/.gtkrc-2.0.mine file to keep your edits.
The "cludge" you have limits the font setting to thunar with the widget_class line. You can add a widget class line for every app or you can set the font size globally with the line I mentioned above ^ in your ~/.gtkrc-2.0.mine file.

harpoon

New Member

Registered: 2013-02-07

Posts: 4

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

moetunes:
For some reason, setting the gtk-font-name= in either .gtkrc-2.0 or .gtkrc-2.0.mine had no effect, but the widget_class cludge did. 

I am not literate enough in such things to offer even a possible explanation as to why.  What you said makes sense to me, and I will go back and see if I made an entry error somewhere that caused your solution to fail.

Many thanks for the input.

harpoon

New Member

Registered: 2013-02-07

Posts: 4

Re: Small font size is unreadable: Thunar and other apps (Solved)

moetunes:
Your solution is correct, and the widgets_class is not necessary unless different settings are needed for specific apps.

My failure to get it to work arises from one of Murphy's laws:
"In any given computation, the number most obviously correct will be the source of the error." I was calling a font not present after the reinstall, but was certain that it was part of the default installation.

Catfish, thunar, pcmanfm, the terminal, gimp, and libreoffice all respond to the change.  Gparted and the synaptic gui do not, but they are used infrequently enough to call things usable on the whole, so I am changing this to "solved."