Bugzilla – Bug 833437
[A11Y] Xterm needs bigger default font when used on higher DPI displays
Last modified: 2018-10-10 10:44:47 UTC
Created attachment 551283 [details] screenshot of "failsafe" session xterm Whether this image actually has anything to do with KDM I doubt, but it's the only login manager I ever use and so have nothing to compare to but an ordinary xterm. This decoration-free xterm window is the result of selecting the failsafe session type on the login screen. On a 100 DPI screen this workspace measures 127mm X 80mm, roughly 1/4 screen height and 1/3 screen width (20" 1600x1200 LCD), with text about 3mm tall. It's the same size as a default xterm window's viewport as opened in KDE. With nose up close to LCD I can read it uncomfortably. On virtually same size and DPI CRT it's fuzzier and more difficult to read. The tiny text problem is compounded by the low contrast of the purple background, which is much worse for the red prompt text. Xterm needs to be smarter as to both window and text size WRT display density (& probably screen size), and thus "safer" for use as failsafe session, meaning easier to actually use if and when necessary. An ordinary xterm would be much better at a larger size of both window and especially text. Those who prefer smaller can more easily configure to be smaller than those who want or need bigger to do the opposite.
Created attachment 551284 [details] screenshot of xterm in KDE using automagic settings (forced 96 DPI on EDID specified 2048x1536 on CRT) This compares closely to comment 0 screenshot, but with added context of UI text and KCalc for perspective on xterm's text and window sizes.
Created attachment 551285 [details] screenshot of xterm in KDE on a Retina class display (220 DPI) Here the xterm text is less than 1.5mm tall, somewhere I estimate in the 4.5pt neighborhood, too small to be useful without magnification except maybe by those with the best of eyesight. KDE normal and UI text sizes have been boosted from default 9pt to 10pt. This is bad A11Y.
Created attachment 551286 [details] screenshot of xterm in KDE on a Retina class display (220 DPI) Uploaded wrong image in comment 2.
This is automated batch bugzilla cleanup. The openSUSE Tumbleweed changed its development model at the end of year 2014. [1] Which means that most of the older bugs are reported against completely different product than the current release of openSUSE Tumbleweed. There is very high probability that this bug is no-longer relevant at all. As a result we are closing this bug. If you can reproduce this bug against a current Tumbleweed installation of openSUSE, or you can still observe it under openSUSE Leap 15.0, please feel free to reopen this bug. Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it was not resolved under the old product. [1] https://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Tumbleweed
No change is apparent to me in TW 20180410
Created attachment 767178 [details] 143 DPI screenshot of Konsole and Xterm on 143 DPI IceWM screen Default Text in Xterm and Xterm size are still much too tiny.
Hm... I don't think it's that XTerm should be smarter, it really doesn't have in it's job description to guess the correct font size. Maybe it's time to move to a bigger default font size with the higher DPI displays being more and more common.