Comment 2 for bug 1655446

The gtk3 port was a straight "get it to run under gtk3" but proper integration with the gtk3 desktop was a secondary thing. So the code to detect the system fonts is still using GConf and the settings in /desktop/gnome/interface/monospace_font_name

The Gnome Shell is going to be using DConf to store its settings, so when you change the setting in whatever GUI settings program you have, it is updating DConf, not the GConf. (/org/gnome/desktop/interface/monospace-font-name) So Terminator doesn't see the change. Instead Terminator will use GConf if available, or if the path doesn't exist it will default to a "Mono 10" string.

I have a change that reads the DConf setting, but I need to figure out the call required to detect external changes to the key. At the moment that bit does not work.