Created attachment 125772 [details] image showcasing underutilized horizontal space In system settings, the font-adjustment interface should utilize more horizontal space when it is available, so that font-names can be seen in their entirety while viewing the various font settings. Screenshot showcasing underutilized horizontal space: http://neartalk.com/ss/useMoreHorizonalSpaceForAdjustFonts.png ProblemType: Bug DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.10 Package: kubuntu-desktop 1.387 ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-29.31-generic 5.3.13 Uname: Linux 5.3.0-29-generic x86_64 NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia_modeset nvidia ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu8.2 Architecture: amd64 CurrentDesktop: KDE Date: Sat Feb 8 12:14:30 2020 InstallationDate: Installed on 2020-02-03 (5 days ago) InstallationMedia: Kubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017) ProcEnviron: TERM=xterm-256color PATH=(custom, no user) XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set> LANG=en_US.UTF-8 SHELL=/bin/bash SourcePackage: kubuntu-meta UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install
Created attachment 126138 [details] display scale 200% Same on my system if I set display scale to 200%. Operating System: Arch Linux KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.0 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.67.0 Qt Version: 5.14.1
Created attachment 126143 [details] Forced DPI to 192 In order to get GNOME applications to not be too small on my 4K monitors, I had to force DPI to 192, but even before I did that, the font utility still didn't make good use of the available horizontal space.
Out of curiosity, does the situation improve is you restart plasmashell and system settings with the PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 environment variable set?
Dear Bug Submitter, This bug has been in NEEDSINFO status with no change for at least 15 days. Please provide the requested information as soon as possible and set the bug status as REPORTED. Due to regular bug tracker maintenance, if the bug is still in NEEDSINFO status with no change in 30 days the bug will be closed as RESOLVED > WORKSFORME due to lack of needed information. For more information about our bug triaging procedures please read the wiki located here: https://community.kde.org/Guidelines_and_HOWTOs/Bug_triaging If you have already provided the requested information, please mark the bug as REPORTED so that the KDE team knows that the bug is ready to be confirmed. Thank you for helping us make KDE software even better for everyone!
Created attachment 134290 [details] Better Screenshot Emphasizing Unused Horizontal Space
Well there's your problem. :) Setting the font DPI to 192 is not the correct way to make scaling work. You should use the global scale setting in the Displays page, which automatically sets the DPI to 192 for you, but also does a bunch of extra stuff to make layouts not break. In newer versions of Plasma, the Fonts KCM has a warning telling you this if you try to perform scaling by only changing the font DPI.
Nate, I edited this file in Kubuntu 20.04: sudo nano /etc/xdg/autostart/org.kde.plasmashell.desktop I added this line: PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 After rebooting, I noticed no effect. Please take a look at the screenshot I submitted in my previous post a few moments ago. This was taken AFTER setting PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 and rebooting.
I was mistaken about that; PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 has no effect. What's needed is to adjust the global scale using the Displays page, not by manually setting the font DPI to something else.
Nate, Before I set DPI to 192, GTK based application had fonts that were way too small: Remmina, Firefox, inkscape, etc. While global scale settings seemed to work fine for KDE apps. It didn't seem to be a true global scaling, else why was it not able to scale GTK apps just the same as KDE apps? If you'll look at that screenshot I attached a few moments ago, I think I'm adequately explaining a more fundamental issue. Proper coding of these controls should utilize more horizontal space when it is available. In that screenshot, you can see that there are several inches of horizontal space, but the width of the font-controls is NOT utilizing it. That's a more fundamental issue. If you're going to support DPI adjustment, the layout and sizing of these controls should be able to accommodate a 192 dpi and 14pt or greater font. This is a badly designed form, because it underutilized horizontal space. I cannot read the Font-Name in its entirety on a 4K display! You don't chop off text when there is plenty of screen real-estate to display it in full. That's what I'm reporting here. I'm not looking for a work-around; Everything else works great (QT and GDK) exactly how I have my settings (except for this badly designed "Font - System Settings" control layout and sizing).
You're not wrong that there's a bug with the sizes of certain controls when you just change the font size or DPI. However this is because these controls are meant to be scaled using the Qt scaling system (which gets invoked by changing the global scale in the KScreen KCM) rather than scaling perfectly with the font size. What you're trying to do is bypass that system and set an *effective* scale factor using a totally different method to work around a bug in GTK apps, which is not something we explicitly support. That said, GTK apps should scale perfectly with integer scale factors (e.g. 2x) set from the kscreen KCM. They do for me with a 200% scale factor in Plasma 5.20. What version of Plasma are you using?
Screenshot: https://i.imgur.com/4M7THzl.png Here are the versions I'm using, according to "System Info": Operating System: Kubuntu 20.04 KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.68.0 Qt Version: 5.12.8 Kernel Version: 5.4.0-58-generic OS Type: 64-bit Processors: 12 × Intel® Core™ i7-8700 CPU @ 3.20GHz Memory: 62.8 GiB of RAM Nate, I've changed from being a Linux Enthusiast (who likes to see each update as it comes out). I prefer to run Long Term Support releases like Kubuntu 20.04, these days. I don't play much on the computer anymore; I work. That said. My favorite Desktop Environment ever was Unity 7. On that DE, if I set scaling to 2.25 on my 4K monitors. All apps looked perfect to my aging eyes. Since Unity 7, ever DE I've used has a half-ass ability to truly do global scaling. Take KDE for example (since that's what I'm using these days). Yeah, it can scale QT apps pretty well, but does a poor Job with GTK apps. That's not a true "global scaling". That's framework-specific scaling. That 192 DPI hack was the only reason I was able to stick with KDE. It was the only glue that made all my apps visible to me on 4K monitors (QT or GTK). If KDE really wanted to be innovative, they create a window manager where each window can be scaled by holding down ctrl while resizing the corner of a window. This would re-scale that window while maintaining aspect ratio. If you hold down control while clicking the right, left, top, or bottom side of a window, aspect ratio would NOT be maintained. I desire this too sometimes. Believe it or not, there was DE that accomplished this back in 2007, called Metisse. I experience this by installing this ISO back in 2007: http://iso.linuxquestions.org/mandriva/mandriva-one-2007-metisse/#live-cd YouTube has a couple of videos showing what you could do with this: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Metisse+desktop It was so cool! You'd think these would be standard features by now, but no. Innovation has been ignored in favor of the lowest common denominator. The future was shown to me in 2007. 13+ years later and no one is implementing window-level scaling: not Linux, not MAC, not Windows.
Well, one consequence of using old versions in the name of stability is that sometimes they're actually more buggy than newer ones. :) This is one example. 2.25x scale looks perfect in Plasma as well (I used it for a long time) provided you use Wayland or set PLASMA_USE_QT_SCALING=1 on X11 due to Bug 356446. We're very close to being there IMO.
Window-level scaling in action: https://youtu.be/dxsUKX6xXyE?t=37 For me, Wayland isn't worth not being about to use applications like Autokey: https://github.com/autokey/autokey/issues/87