"Add to Panel..." assumes and hard-codes font sizes

[Travis Reitter]

Binary package hint: gnome-accessibility-themes

Ubuntu's "Add to Panel..." dialog hard-codes font sizes for launchers whose text label requires two lines at size 10. (Interestingly, if the Application font size is changed to a larger size while the dialog is open, it will apply it to all launcher text labels).

For the text that does use the system font size correctly, the dialog assumes it is the same size as the hard-coded font size, and will only take up one line. See the attached screenshot.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open "System > Preferences > Font Preferences".
2. Change Application font size to 16.
3. Close Dialog.
4. Right-click on panel and open "Add to Panel..." dialog box.

[Travis Reitter (treitter-dev)]

Notice the text label selection box for "Modem [Monitor]" and the icons overlapping with text and horizontal rules.

[Daniel Holbach (dholbach)]

Manu: do you know if the gnome-panel patch uses fixed width and height?

[Manu Cornet (lmanul)]

This seems to depend on the kinds of applets (maybe internal applets). However, the problem with horizontal lines overlapping the text doesn't seem to appear on my system (screenshot attached). I'm investigating on this, marking as in progress.

[Manu Cornet (lmanul)]

Ok, there seems to be nothing wrong with the layout code itself, but the "add to panel" dialog doesn't seem to be aware of the new font size fast enough. I have just tried this:

1. Change the application font to 16
2. Open the "add to" dialog, the fonts are all mixed up
3. killall gnome-panel
4. Open the dialog again: everything looks fine (fonts, rounded rectangles, etc.)

I need to find out how to notify the dialog about the font change.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Hm... in my dupe (bug 133409) on gutsy, I've rebooted and still have inconsistent font size selection in the add to panel dialog.

[Josh Lee (jleedev)]

> This seems to depend on the kinds of applets (maybe internal applets).

This might not be right, because in your screenshot, Clock and Tomboy have the same font size, but in mine, they have different font sizes.

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

When approaching a fix to this bug, don't forget to try multiple DPI settings for the font renderer (don't change just the font size).

[ngc2997 (ngc2997-deactivatedaccount)]

Actually seems to depend on whether the applet's description has more than one line; see another example in the attachment (Gutsy, 32bit).

[Michael R. Head (burner)]

Good call ngc2997. But I'm not sure which is the cause and which is the effect!

[ngc2997 (ngc2997-deactivatedaccount)]

Of course; either way, the effect is a bit annoying (yet rather cosmetic).. Btw, I haven't noticed this in Feisty.

[Dylan McCall (dylanmccall)]

Reproduced this bug in Hardy. Fonts were consistent after I changed the font size, originally. However, once I restarted the system, it was back to the old ways; some items were following my new size 8 font, while others were still using size 10.

[Dylan McCall (dylanmccall)]

I have observed the behaviour with (only) the following applets. This is recorded with Gutsy. Hardy seems to follow the same pattern, though another pair of eyes would be helpful.

-"Address Book Search"
-"Dictionary Lookup"
-"Workspace Switcher"
-"Clipboard Text Encryption"
-"Battery Charge Monitor"
-"Brightness Applet"
-"Computer Temperature Monitor"
-"CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor"
-"Hardware Sensors Monitor"
-"Terminal Server Client Applet"
-"Character Palette"
-"Connect To Server..."
-"Keyboard Accessibility Status"
-"Keyboard Indicator"
-"Search for Files"

Note that some of my listed applets are not included by default, which undoubtedly makes the puzzle more puzzling.

[hairy_Palms (mm294)]

Dylan McCall wrote:
> I have observed the behaviour with (only) the following applets. This is
> recorded with Gutsy. Hardy seems to follow the same pattern, though
> another pair of eyes would be helpful.
>
> -"Address Book Search"
> -"Dictionary Lookup"
> -"Workspace Switcher"
> -"Clipboard Text Encryption"
> -"Battery Charge Monitor"
> -"Brightness Applet"
> -"Computer Temperature Monitor"
> -"CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor"
> -"Hardware Sensors Monitor"
> -"Terminal Server Client Applet"
> -"Character Palette"
> -"Connect To Server..."
> -"Keyboard Accessibility Status"
> -"Keyboard Indicator"
> -"Search for Files"
>
> Note that some of my listed applets are not included by default, which
> undoubtedly makes the puzzle more puzzling.
>
>
Ive always found, that its only on applets who's name is long enough to
need two lines whos fonts are wrong, for example if you set all the
gnomt font properties to 8 and restart then the only ones who's fonts
are wrong for me 9though i dont have many of your ones installed) is

Battery Charge Monitor
CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor
Keyboard Accessibility Status

which are the longest names, thats the only thing they have in common as
far as i have been able to see

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

That is fixed in hardy where the upstream dialog is used now