Question about Menu fonts

Lend27 · posted: 2016-05-29 22:28

I'm attaching 2 screenshots.
1 is from my main computer install, labelled screenshot2.jpg
The other is from my secondary computer labelled screenshot1.jpg

Please notice that in screenshot1 the menu font is bold, in screenshot 2 the menu font is plain.
I didn't do anything to either of them to acheive that.
They both have Nvidia graphics cards.
The menu in screenshot1 was plain until I installed the nvidia driver. But they both have nvidia cards. although different ones.
Where is the setting for the menu font so I can make it bold in both,

BitJam · posted: 2016-05-30 03:40

Here is one way to do it. Copy /usr/share/icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/ directory to a subdirectory of ~/.icewm/themes/ and then edit the default.theme file changing the line:

Code: Select all

MenuFontNameXft="sans:size=12"

to

Code: Select all

MenuFontNameXft="sans:size=12:bold"

You can copy that theme directory and edit the file with these commands:

Code: Select all

mkdir ~/.icewm/themes
cp -r /usr/share/icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/ ~/.icewm/themes/
leafpad ~/.icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/default.theme

On the live system you can adjust the size of most fonts (not just the icewm menu) with the"dpi=xxx" cheat or the 'fontsize=yyy" cheat. There will be entries in the"F6 Desktop" menu to set the fontsize in the next release.

SamK · posted: 2016-05-30 10:55

Lend27 wrote:Please notice that in screenshot1 the menu font is bold, in screenshot 2 the menu font is plain.
I didn't do anything to either of them to acheive that.

I'm not sure whether the following is relevant to your symptoms but mention it because you say there was a change when you installed a video driver.

In an antiX-16 system using a Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller video driver:

When the video driver for the specific hardware is used, the menu text works as designed i.e. non-bold text
When the vesa video driver is used (instead of the specific hardware driver), the menu shows bold text for some reason.

Lend27 · posted: 2016-05-30 15:39

BitJam wrote:Here is one way to do it. Copy /usr/share/icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/ directory to a subdirectory of ~/.icewm/themes/ and then edit the default.theme file changing the line:
Code: Select all
MenuFontNameXft="sans:size=12"
to
Code: Select all
MenuFontNameXft="sans:size=12:bold"
You can copy that theme directory and edit the file with these commands:
Code: Select all
mkdir ~/.icewm/themes
cp -r /usr/share/icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/ ~/.icewm/themes/
leafpad ~/.icewm/themes/"Clearview Blue Medium"/default.theme
On the live system you can adjust the size of most fonts (not just the icewm menu) with the"dpi=xxx" cheat or the 'fontsize=yyy" cheat. There will be entries in the"F6 Desktop" menu to set the fontsize in the next release.

I modified the file and that worked __{{emoticon}}__
Thanks for your help!

Len

Lend27 · posted: 2016-05-30 15:40

SamK wrote:
Lend27 wrote:Please notice that in screenshot1 the menu font is bold, in screenshot 2 the menu font is plain.
I didn't do anything to either of them to acheive that.
I'm not sure whether the following is relevant to your symptoms but mention it because you say there was a change when you installed a video driver.

In an antiX-16 system using a Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller video driver:
When the video driver for the specific hardware is used, the menu text works as designed i.e. non-bold text

When the vesa video driver is used (instead of the specific hardware driver), the menu shows bold text for some reason.

I think this is relevant.
Since there are two different Nvidia cards, and both motherboards have a built in Intel graphics, this might be causing it.
I modified the theme file and it's now bold.
Thanks for your input!

Len

BitJam · posted: 2016-05-30 17:50

SamK wrote:In an antiX-16 system using a Intel Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller video driver:
When the video driver for the specific hardware is used, the menu text works as designed i.e. non-bold text

When the vesa video driver is used (instead of the specific hardware driver), the menu shows bold text for some reason.

That's interesting. I've noticed that the DPI is set automatically when the vesa driver is used. This can make the menu font appear bold but I did not see any other indications of a changed DPI in Lend27's screen shots. You can see the DPI setting with this command:

Code: Select all

 xdpyinfo | grep resolution

The default is 96x96.

Large increases in the DPI setting can cause the conky formating to"break" because the text becomes too large to fit into the alloted space (which is set in pixels). If the DPI is increased via the"dpi=xx" or"fontsize=yy" cheats on the live system then the size of conky is also increased to accommodate the larger text. The automatic DPI setting with the vesa driver is not optimal with regards to conky but it is probably good for a failsafe driver since high resolution screens can be nearly unusable unless the DPI setting is increased. IMO the automatic DPI setting is too large making the text look clunky, but again, this is safer than if were too small.

SamK · posted: 2016-05-31 14:44

BitJam wrote:I've noticed that the DPI is set automatically when the vesa driver is used. This can make the menu font appear bold...

The following screenshots illustrate the result of that.

non-vesa automatically set up

dpi=96
resolution=1280x800
menu text=as designed

vesa automatically set up

dpi=86x102
resolution=1024x768
menu text="bold"

vesa manually set up

dpi=96
resolution=1024x768
menu text=as designed

In both above cases where vesa is used the maximum screen resolution is lower than when the specific hardware driver is used. This will be quite a common experience. In such cases a need to increase DPI is reduced.

In the case of the newest-of-new-kit, a specific hardware video driver may not yet be available, so vesa might be used. It is unlikely that a user will select antiX for such kit. It is not a primary target for antiX, and the distro is not is not generally perceived as such.

In the case of newish-to-oldish-kit, a specific hardware video driver is usually available, vesa will not be needed or used.

In the case of oldest-kit, a specific hardware video driver might no longer be available, or the hardware might no longer be supported. Vesa might be the only realistic choice. This is a primary target for antiX, and the distro is generally perceived as such.

The value gained by automatically increasing the DPI for vesa, to accommodate kit capable of the highest resolution, seems dubious. While in theory it might have a purpose, it is questionable whether it will actually have a real application. It seems to impact actual use cases in order to cover a tiny number of theoretical use cases.