Arch Linux

insidious15

Member

Registered: 2017-05-30

Posts: 1

HiDPI Workarounds

After getting an new laptop with a UHD monitor, i've discovered HiDPI in arch is a bit of a catch 22, specifically:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Hi … ux_console

This will make the font render properly in most toolkits and applications, it will however not affect things such as icon size! Setting Xft.dpi at the same time as toolkit scale (e.g. GDK_SCALE) may cause interface elements to be much larger than intended in some programs like firefox. 

So, I can do

xrandr --output eDP1 --dpi 200

and most applications will scale find (Spotify/Chrome I can force to scale). But the second I make

Xft.dpi 200

in my Xresources Firefox becomes huge, have to lower the font in the terminal, and messes up other things too.

run_scaled-git usually runs applications slower than I would like.

Is there anyway to set Xft.dpi for individual applications?
If I switch Xft.dpi to 200, launch the application that needs scaling, then set it back to 100 after launch, everything remains OK. I suppose I could write a script that does this and run the script with the application, but that seems a bit too finicky for me.

What are your experiences with HiDPI? Any advice?

Most of my applications are OK and I can live with tinnnnyy font in the sublime text menu, but it's still less than ideal. At this point, though, it's really only a few applications.

Last edited by insidious15 (2017-05-30 18:26:08)

hrkristian

Member

Registered: 2013-06-28

Posts: 34

Re: HiDPI Workarounds

I've resorted to using GTK+ 3 and QT5 aplications where I can. As you've discovered trying to force upscaling just becomes a clusterfuck.

Fairly certain what happens with FF is, since it uses GTK+ 3, it already detects and adjusts for the DPI and that comes on top of what you're doing manually.

As for Sublime, v3 works perfectly fine for me: http://i.imgur.com/2UHP6HO.png. Are you using v2?

Using a 4K monitor btw (2160p)