font sizes in gnome terminal are smaller when running realVNC realVNC

[Mihai Badea]

Hi Kevin,

DPI setting of Gnome probably changes Xorg's local display settings
only.
The -dpi param of vncserver is only for vnc sessions. DPI setting is
intended to help the user obtain the same size of text regardless of
display
size. For example a 15'4 WXGA monitor (1280x800) and a 13'3
display of the
same resolution will display the same A4 page in ooffice
at the same actual
phisical size, in inches (that shoud be the size of
the real A4 sheet).
However the percent of the page displayable will be
smaller on the 13'3
display since it's smaller, and the pixelation will
be finer. On the bigger
one you will see more of the page but the
letters will show more granulated.
That is because the pixels (dots) are bigger on the bigger display, and so
they are less in number per same distance.
The DPI for the first monitor is
smaller (since smaller number of
larger pixels will show per inch); also the
DPI for the second monitor
is larger (since larger number of larger pixels
will show per inch).
Since the display resolutions in pixels are a few
standard sizes and
also the sizes of screen are a few standard sizes there
will result for
a phisical display some more common DPI values like 75, 84,
96, 120 etc.
A good example is the Windows XP DPI setting which gives you 2
presets
- Normal 96 DPI, and Large Fonts 120DPI. You can also set your own
(unfortunately any other setting than 96 DPI will mess up some apps'
interfaces since most people forget to miss some basic guildelines when
designing them).

The right way to set your DPI is to measure your display
size in
inches(either phisical or vnc) with a ruler and divide the number of
pixels by it.
I prefer to set a smaller DPI because will make my fonts smaller
more
info shows up on the screen (instead of bigger window titles, menus,
decorations).


There are some bitmap fonts used with X, they will match
integer number
of pixels and they come in only one or two sizes, so changing
the DPI
will not affect them in the same way as the True Type ones. Maybe it
would be a good ideea to check the font in your terminal and if bitmap
try
changing it to a fixed-width TT font.
Hope that helps.

RumburaK


-----
Original Message ----
From: Kevin Klein <kklein1 "at" gmail.com>
To: Jon Peatfield
<J.S.Peatfield "at" damtp.cam.ac.uk>
Cc: "Williams, Chris (Marlboro)"
<ChristopherB.Williams "at" amd.com>; vnc-list "at" realvnc.com
Sent: Wednesday, 30
July, 2008 10:16:11 PM
Subject: Re: font sizes in gnome terminal are smaller
when running  realVNC realVNC

I found a setting in the GNOME desktop called
"Font Preferences".  In this
menu, there is an option to change the DPI of the
fonts used in GNOME,
including the fonts of the terminal windows.  The strange
thing is that when
I modify the dpi, the only fonts that actually change in
size are the ones
in my local desktop.  Nothing happens to the fonts in my VNC
desktop.  This
is even the case if I access the "Font Preferences" menu from
within the VNC
session.  It only modifies the font sizes in the local desktop.
Nothing
changes in the actual VNC session.

Kevin

On Wed, Jul 30, 2008 at
4:02 PM, Jon Peatfield <
J.S.Peatfield "at" damtp.cam.ac.uk> wrote:

> On Wed, 30
Jul 2008, Williams, Chris (Marlboro) wrote:
>
>  I forgot about xset -q. That
might help find the problem.
>> I was talking to Kevin off-list and he's
running the GNOME desktop which
>> might be overriding whatever X has set has
it's fonts. Or
>> gnome-terminals own font config might be poorly set.
>>
>
>
Indeed.  It may also be worth checking with a fresh dummy account just in
>
case there is some config being stored.
>
>  AFAIK the RENDER extension is
only available with Enterprise Edition of
>> RealVNC and I'm almost sure he's
not running that.
>>
>
> There are some patches floating about which attempt
to add RENDER to the
> realvnc stuff.  I see from the Redhat changelog for the
vnc-server rpm that
> they have at various points turned render on (and
usually back off again
> pretty shortly afterwards).
>
> Recentish versions of
Xorg will have RENDER enabled by default so it will
> be on for the X on a
console.  A badly written app (or library) *might*
> behave one way when it is
available (like on the console) and do something
> else when it isn't (like
with Xvnc).
>
>  -- Jon
>
_______________________________________________
VNC-List mailing list
VNC-List "at" realvnc.com
To remove yourself from the list
visit:
http://www.realvnc.com/mailman/listinfo/vnc-list
__________________________________________________________
Not happy with your
email address?.
Get the one you really want - millions of new email addresses
available now at Yahoo! http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/ymail/new.html