Maemotalk

Scaling / Changing the System Fonts

April 21, 2006 on 10:19 am | In maemo, nokia770 |

I would like to add yet one more thing to the list of things that should be user configurable (on the 770), but is not. The selection of System Fonts and System Font sizes. The 770 display has one of the highest pixel densities available, yet the system font is 16.75 points. For everything. Yes, I may be getting old and my eyes arent as sharp as they used to be, but I would like the option of tweaking the system font to fit how i see. Not some demographic profile. I would also like to be able to do in a few easy steps without having to write my own theme.

At some point, i may write a script for this (or maybe somebody else will). Until then i have the following process.
NOTE - Before you start editing your favorite theme, make sure it is NOT the current and active theme.

1. Open a xterm window and enter ’sudo gainroot’
2. Enter ’su -’
3. Enter ‘cd /usr/share/themes’
4. Select your current favorite theme. The directory names are not exactly right, and you may have to examine ‘index.theme’ in each directory to determine the theme name (clue in line 3 of the file).
5. When you have selected your favorite theme, enter the matchbox directory within that theme.
6. enter ‘cp theme.xml theme.xml.baseline’ to make a backup.
7. Edit theme.xml, and find ‘ font id=”osso-TitleFont” def=”Nokia Sans-16.75:30px” ‘ at about line 13.
8. Change the def entry to something like ‘def=”Nokia Sans-14″ />”‘. The fonts are TTF fonts and scalable, and I am not sure what the px entry does, but it worked fine without it.
9. Save and exit the file. Enter ‘cd ../gtk-2.0′
10. Enter ‘cp gtkrc gtkrc.baseline’ to make a backup.
11. Enter ‘rm gtkrc.cache’ to delete the current cached resources.
12. Edit gtkrc.
13. Find a font definition section from lines 253 to 294.
14. Change all of the 16.75 fonts to 14. I left the rest alone.
15. Save and exit the file.
16. Reselect this modified theme from the home tab, and all of your system fonts should be noticably smaller but still readable (for most of us).

Of course, you can adjust as necessary to any miniscule or monstrous font of your choosing.

ubergEEk

PS - Like everything else on this blog, use at your own risk. Just because it worked for me, does not mean I assume responsibility for anything you do.