Arch Linux

dtw

Forum Fellow

From: UK

Registered: 2004-08-03

Posts: 4,439

Website

Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

Here is a a screenshot for comparison of my FVWM and XFCE4 setup: link - don't assume it is full size when you first open it - make sure you check.

Now, I have highlighted the diffs that bother me.  The left is FVWM, on the right is XFCE4.  You can see:

1. the bookmark names on the left are smaller than those on the right (prefer FVWM)
2.  The Arch website tabs and Wiki headings are, as far as I can tell identical
3. The text in the wiki on the left is very chunky, look at the e's for example.  On the right it is much smoother and preferred.  This only seems to affect a few fonts.

My conclusion is that the problem only affects the non-bold fonts and I guess the ugly fonts are un-anti-aliased.

This is on the same system, same settings in conf.d and local.conf

In the XFCE font config page Anti-Alias and Hinting Full are selected (default) - what's NOT enabled in my FVWM setup?

stonecrest

Member

From: Boulder

Registered: 2005-01-22

Posts: 1,190

Re: Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

It looks like maybe differences in dpi, since the fonts seem to be slightly different sizes. Xfce automatically sets your dpi as 96 when you use startxfce4, for example (see /opt/xfce4/etc/xdg/xfce4/xinitrc). Is your fvwm dpi 96 too?

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dtw

Forum Fellow

From: UK

Registered: 2004-08-03

Posts: 4,439

Website

Re: Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

Hmm - I have had it set to 100 by X on start-up for sometime.  Not sure why now.  It's a 15" at 1024x768.  Our wiki suggests that 75dpi is good for that...but I know Windows uses 96 dpi.  I switched it to 96 in xorg now and that has the same fonts coming up now.  So that's great but maybe I can get it even better?  Suggestions, please?

allucid

Member

Registered: 2006-01-06

Posts: 259

Re: Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

Your dpi looks the same to me. The fonts you pointed out are drawn by GTK.

While in xfce open xfce-settings-show. Click on "User Interface". What are the font settings?

While in fvwm open gtk-chtheme (or just look at ~/.gtkrc-2.0). What are the fonts settings here?

They should be identical if you want your fonts to match.

dolby

Member

From: 1992

Registered: 2006-08-08

Posts: 1,581

Re: Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

playing with openbox today & i noticed a different behaviour in comparison to xfce4 too
Openbox screenshot:

Xfce4 screenshot:

i prefer the xfce4 fonts
does anyone have any idea how to have such fonts in openbox 3 too?
the previous comment about editing ~/.gtkrc-2.0 gives a hint but i am unsure of the commands

& another one:
openbox 3:

xfce4:

following allucid's advice i looked at my xfce font settings and added to .Xdefaults

Xft*dpi:                96
Xft*antialias:          true
Xft*hinting:            full

which solved the issue

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There shouldn't be any reason to learn more editor types than emacs or vi -- mg (1)
[You learn that sarcasm does not often work well in international forums.  That is why we avoid it. -- ewaller (arch linux forum moderator)

sokuban

Member

Registered: 2006-11-11

Posts: 412

Re: Fonts: what is xfce4 doing differently?

I had a similar problem when I switched from xfce to openbox. Just when I was about to give up and return to xfce, while I was downloading xfce it said something about the fonts cache and it seems that it was the package gsfonts. If you have gsfonts installed then your fonts look good, if not then they don't. That is what I did.

However for me, the openbox fonts looked much worse, and they really hurt my eyes. They looked like monospace'd serif'd fonts, and they were really long.