Default font size in gnome
Martin Pitt
martin.pitt at ubuntu.com
Fri Feb 27 08:53:06 UTC 2009
Chris Cheney [2009-02-26 14:04 -0600]:
> For the netbook and higher end (and newer) laptop case where dpi can be
> up to 150dpi users will see a definite increase in size of the fonts.
> The size of the fonts will now be the proper size according to what they
> claim to be. The font size could be shrunk down since the average
> distance to a netbook/laptop screen is smaller than for regular monitors
> but should not be the new default size.
That's in fact the only class of screens where the current (jaunty)
defaults are slightly wrong, right?
As discussed yesterday, I think merely looking at the dpi is
insufficient, due to the vastly different viewing distance of e. g. a
20" monitor (where you probably sit in a distance of 80 cm/30inches),
and a mobile device with a high resolution screen, where your viewing
distance is more like 30cm/15 inches. I. e. the mobile can have half
the font size and needs twice the resolution to provide the same font
reading quality.
Thus I think we should not (only) base the font size on dpi, but
rather on the physical size of the screen. Does anyone know whether
the reported (EDID) physical size of the monitor is reliable on may
devices? I get
$ xdpyinfo |grep dimensions
dimensions: 1280x1024 pixels (339x271 millimeters)
which is very precise.
In that sense, the old 96 dpi hardcoded default wasn't really too bad,
i. e. it worked for screens with sensible resolutions. Nonsensical in
this context are 50 dpi mobile screens (block world) and huge 200 dpi
wall screens (just a waste of pixels), and there aren't actually many
of those around.
Martin
--
Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de
Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org)
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