fontsize in 7.92

[Matthew Saltzman]

On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 21:31 +0200, Christoph Höger wrote:
> Richi Plana schrieb:
> > On Tue, 2007-10-23 at 00:24 +0200, Nicolas Mailhot wrote:
> >   
> >> Le mardi 23 octobre 2007 à 00:01 -0400, Christoph Hoeger a écrit :
> >>
> >>     
> >>> is that sense-full? I mean, I've bought a Thinkpad R60 with a 1440x900
> >>> Display to see more information on my screen simultaneously 
> >>>       
> >> If you want small fonts just lower the size in points of your fonts in
> >> your app preferences. Gnome font preferences use pt as unit. Till now
> >> the GNOME pt unit had no relation with the pt unit the rest of the world
> >> uses. Now it's the same, so if you want small fonts you need to actually
> >> configure small fonts and not change the unit meaning on your system
> >> (and likewise if you want big fonts).
> >>
> >> That also means BTW that when you change laptop again your text will
> >> stay the same size regardless of the screen resolution, so you can
> >> invest the time to find good settings you'll keep them a long time.
> >>     
> >
> > I, for one, am glad that there's a move to make font sizes be based on
> > length rather than point sizes.
> >
> > The selection of a default font size is still crap-shoot, at best.
> > Having the monitor DPI as a dependency now allows people to say "I want
> > fonts that are so-and-so millimeters in height", unfortunately, 1) we
> > still lack information like distance of the viewer from the screen and
> > the height of the screen relative to the viewer, and 2) we've no way to
> > guess what the user would want, anyway. There are a couple of
> > discussions on the most ergonomic distance between monitor and viewer,
> > but font size preference is pretty varied. The only way to find out is
> > to let the gnome desktop provide feedback (a'la Smolt) after the user
> > has customized the desktop to his/her preference. Perhaps than a norm
> > can be established.
> >
> > Personally, I would like to set my font size preference in some length
> > unit of measure so that I can bump up the resolution and not have the
> > fonts and icons shrink to sizes I can hardly read. It's important for me
> > to see a lot more information on the screen, but not to the point where
> > it becomes useless because they're too small that I keep having to
> > squint. Believe me, straining ones eyesight like that will eventually
> > take its toll.
> > --
> >
> > Richi Plana
> >
> >   
> I totally agree with your point.
> But in my case that would mean to have one choice to use "small fonts" 
> instead of "normal fonts". I think that choosing (and testing) every 
> font size until it fits your needs is a little too much work for a 
> normal user to have a comfortable desktop. 

Really?  How incompetent do we think "normal users" are?

Users that don't want to take the trouble and are willing to live with
the consequences will behave accordingly anyway.  For those of us that
tune our desktops to within an inch of their lives, leave us the option,
please?

> So could we provide a 
> "small/normal/large font" switch or even theme?

If this is the direction you want to go, could you at least leave the
full selection available as "advanced"?

> 
> christoph
> 
> 
-- 
                Matthew Saltzman

Clemson University Math Sciences
mjs AT clemson DOT edu
http://www.math.clemson.edu/~mjs