[Solved] antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

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handy
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[Solved] antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#1 Post by handy »

Note: Solved, (at least for IceWM) see the solution at the end of this post - or read the thread to get there if you like.
____________________________

I've done some poking around in the antiX system, & some searching on the web, but I'm not doing too well here. Perhaps due to at least some of these WM's not being in very wide use these days?

I've followed instructions & copied /usr/share/icewm/preferences over to (& over the top of a much smaller file of the same name), modified the font sizes in this preferences file, & still, no avail.

I'm using a 1080p display, & my old eyes "really" don't like having to strain for any reason. So if someone would be so kind as to point me to a good reference, or to tell me the secret of getting one of these WM's that antiX supplies in its "base" install, to give me menu font control, my eyes & I, will certainly be most grateful. ;)

On an adjacent note, I've installed Openbox & the other stuff that I use, but I'd like to keep one of these WM's that come with the antiX install, just for referencing some of the obscure (& unfortunately, their names will be too easily forgotten by me) tools that the antiX team have supplied. I especially like the great tools that are terminal based. :D

It will take me a while to incorporate these new ways of doing things into my daily IT reality...

Oh, yeh! I am really liking antiX at this early stage of the game too. :D

==================== SOLUTION ===================
So the (or at least "a") solution to this problem, is to copy your /usr/share/icewm/themes/default/default.theme file, into your ~/.icewm/ directory & then edit it to be the way that you want it to be.

I also checked that I could change the theme being used whilst inside of IceWM, & I could. It doesn't write which theme it is using anywhere in the ~/.icewm directory, & I don't care. ;)
Last edited by handy on Wed Aug 01, 2018 2:56 am, edited 2 times in total.
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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dolphin_oracle
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#2 Post by dolphin_oracle »

Its not quite what you are looking for, but the "Set Font Size" tool (I forget the exact name) in the antiX control center can apply a scale factor to all the fonts. It should work with any of the wm's although sometimes icewm gets a little hard to deal with.
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

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KoO
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#3 Post by KoO »

handy

fluxbox= antix conrol center >Desktop >Set font Size (DPI)

I you i3 with antix so it was just as easy to install = LXAppearance you set fonts size , themes , etc with this
Main : MX 19.1-AHS (i3) 5.4.13-1~mx19+1, Asus B450-i AMD 5 3600 , 32gb Hyper-X 3200 , GTX970 . :linuxlove:
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handy
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#4 Post by handy »

Thank you both for your replies. :) I agree, changing the DPI is certainly a way around the problem (as you mentioned dolphin_oracle, it isn't really what I'm looking for, but I will use it as a last resort.

I have LXAppearance (by whatever other name), as well as Obconf & one for Qt apps running under GTK+ too. They will change everything but the non-OB WM menu size.
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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dolphin_oracle
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#5 Post by dolphin_oracle »

the post in this old antiX forum thread about the "prefoverride file" may be just what you want.

: https://antixlinux.com/forum-archive/ic ... t5456.html
http://www.youtube.com/runwiththedolphin
lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme Gen 4 - MX-23
FYI: mx "test" repo is not the same thing as debian testing repo.

antiX-Dave
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#6 Post by antiX-Dave »

You will need to modify a theme file.
They are found in /usr/share
I am not 100% on the locations. I think icewm is under themes and fluxbox under fluxbox/themes. I have no idea about jwm.

If I recall correctly, you can copy the theme to the home folder under the "." folder for the windows manager you are using. Example : ".icewm/". I am not certain about this as I just modify the main files under /usr/share

skidoo
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#7 Post by skidoo »

To manage fonts displayed by JWM, yes, need to edit individual theme files residing in /usr/share/blahblah
because each time you select (make active) a given JWM theme, its files are copied from /usr/share/blahblah
into your ~/.jwm/theme/ directory, overwriting any files already residing there.

For iceWM and fluxbox, instead of (micro)managing individual theme files, you can open in text editor
~/.icewm/preferences
and/or ~.fluxbox/init
find the lines which mention "font" and edit to suit your preference. Any font declarations here, in the window manager's configuration file, should take precedence / override any fontface and fontsize declarations stated within the individual theme (er, "style") files.

quick tip for fluxbox (might be same for iceWM, I didn't recheck):
You can simply add beginning-of-line ; or # to outcomment each of the lines stating granular (e.g. title-only or menubar.whenfocused -only) font declarations
and, as the bottommost line, use a single default.font declaration
(for the changes to take effect after editing/saving the file, logout/login, or use the fluxbox menu "reconfigure" command)

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handy
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#8 Post by handy »

Thanks again for your help.

OK, I first went & modified the /usr/share/icewm/themes/default/default.theme making all of the font sizes larger.

Then I switched into IceWM & nothing had changed.

So next, I created ~/.icewm/prefoverride & put just one line of code into it:

MenuFontNameXft="Sans:size=20"

I then switched into IceWM & initially everything looked the same, until I looked at the menu & the font had been changed to Sans-20. :D

So that will do it. Though I will go & see if I can make the task bar fonts bigger too, though it won't really matter if I can't.

I'll let you know...
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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handy
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Re: antiX:- How do you modify the font size of the WM's that can come with antiX?

#9 Post by handy »

OK, I worked out some time ago that I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed... lol

So after my last post, I thought why don't I just copy my already edited /usr/share/icewm/themes/default/default.theme file into the ~/.icewm/prefoverride file & see how we go.

So I did, & when I looked in IceWM I could see straight away that it worked. :D

I expect that I could likely now just rename the prefoverride file to default.theme & it will still work.

[edit:] Yes, renaming prefoverride to default.theme does work.

So the (or at least "a") solution to this problem, is to copy your /usr/share/icewm/themes/default/default.theme file, into your ~/.icewm/ directory & then edit it to be the way that you want it to be.

I also checked that I could change the theme being used whilst inside of IceWM, & I could. It doesn't write which theme it is using anywhere in the ~/.icewm directory, & I don't care. ;)
1_MSI: MAG B560 TORP', i5, RAM 16GB, GTX 1070 Ti 12GB, M2 238GB + USB, MX-23 Fb to Openbox
2_Lenovo: Ideapad 520S, i5, RAM 8GB, GPU i620, HDD 1TB, MX-21 - Openbox
3_Clevo: P150SM-A, i7, RAM 16GB, nVidia 8600, 2x 1TB HDD & M.2 256 GB, MX-21 - Openbox

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