[pkg-fso-maint] matchbox-panel/window-manager and XFT support (was Re: Bug#500626: xserver-xglamo: fonts are very large in e.g. midori)

Luca Capello luca at pca.it
Thu Jun 4 10:06:40 UTC 2009


clone 529321 -1
reassign -1 matchbox-window-manager
retitle -1 matchbox-window-manager: does not respect ~/.Xresources Xft.dpi settings
found -1 1.2-3
severity -1 important
user pkg-fso-maint at lists.alioth.debian.org
usertags -1 + config-glamo
thanks

Hi there!

I am sorry for the long mail: I thought that documenting all my tests
done last week could be useful, at least to be sure there are no other
easier solutions.

On Thu, 21 May 2009 13:54:43 +0200, gregor herrmann wrote:
> On Thu, 21 May 2009 13:22:53 +0200, Joachim Breitner wrote:
>
> [cc'ing the matchbox-panel bug #529321, some info is still in
> #500626]

For the Matchbox maintainers, this bug originated in #500626.

>> > Now I've started all other applications on my FR, and they all seem
>> > to work with this setting. With some details:
>> > 
>> > * gpicview has tiny fonts in the titles of floating dialog boxes but
>> >   they are useless anyway.
>> > * midori works fine, but again floating dialog boxes
>> >   (Edit->Preferences) have a tiny title.
>> > * The same with epdfviewer.
>> > * The same with mumpot.
>> > 
>> > So there seems to be a pattern - titles of floating/independent
>> > dialog windows are tiny; in practice that's no problem but there
>> > seems to be some underlying problem.
>> 
>> Without seeing it myself, I assume that these titles are rendered by
>> matchbox-window-manager, which maybe uses fixed pixel-based sizes – just
>> as matchbox-panel. 
>
> Sounds plausible.

First, thanks to Gregor, I found the following:
=====
debian-gta02:~# matchbox-window-manager --help
usage: matchbox-window-manager [options ...]
[...]
Compile time features;
        debug build                      no
        XFT support                      no
[...]
debian-gta02:~#
=====

Indeed, if XFT support is compiled in, everything works:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
diff -u matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/rules matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/rules
--- matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/rules
+++ matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/rules
@@ -4,3 +4,3 @@
 
-DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS = --enable-startup-notification --enable-expat
+DEB_CONFIGURE_EXTRA_FLAGS = --enable-startup-notification --enable-expat --enable-standalone-xft
 # --enable-gconf
diff -u matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/changelog matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/changelog
--- matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/changelog
+++ matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/changelog
@@ -1,3 +1,13 @@
+matchbox-window-manager (1.2-3+nmu1) unstable; urgency=low
+
+  * Non-maintainer upload.
+  * debian/control:
+    + Build-Depends: on libxft-dev.
+  * debian/rules:
+    + enable XFT support (Closes: #529321).
+
+ -- Luca Capello <luca at pca.it>  Wed, 27 May 2009 11:55:16 +0200
+
 matchbox-window-manager (1.2-3) unstable; urgency=low
 
   * Update matchbox-remote man page.  Closes: #494391.
diff -u matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/control matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/control
--- matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/control
+++ matchbox-window-manager-1.2/debian/control
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 Section: embedded
 Priority: optional
 Maintainer: Moray Allan <moray at debian.org>
-Build-Depends: cdbs (>= 0.4.21), debhelper (>= 4.1.0), pkg-config, libstartup-notification0-dev, libmatchbox-dev (>= 1.9-4), libxsettings-dev, libxsettings-client-dev
+Build-Depends: cdbs (>= 0.4.21), debhelper (>= 4.1.0), pkg-config, libstartup-notification0-dev, libmatchbox-dev (>= 1.9-4), libxsettings-dev, libxsettings-client-dev, libxft-dev
 Standards-Version: 3.8.0
 Homepage: http://matchbox-project.org/
 
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

However, with the above patch we loose the XSettings support, which
other people wants in the Debian package:

  http://bugs.debian.org/477209
  http://bugs.debian.org/477216

At that point, since the problem still persists in matchbox-panel, I
decided to resume the situation WRT matchbox-panel and
matchbox-window-manager, taking some screenshots:

  http://pkg-fso.alioth.debian.org/bugs/matchbox-xft/

Since the problem is the same in both packages, but not in
matchbox-desktop (already at version 2.0), I thought it was caused by
libmatchbox, compiled with Pango support since version 1.9-3:

  http://bugs.debian.org/471309

However, recompiling libmatchbox without Pango support and then
matchbox-panel and matchbox-window-manager with this development library
did not solve the situation.  I think this simply means that the problem
is not in the linked libraries, but in how the texts themselves are
drawn.  Searching with Google resulted in some interesting reading
related to Pango, Xft and DPI:

  http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gnome.gtk+.internationalization/889

I was quite surprised that matchbox-desktop_2.0 did not show the same
error and then I discovered why reading on the Matchbox roadmap:

  http://matchbox-project.org/?p=15

Starting from version 2.0, matchbox-desktop directly uses GTK+ and it
does not rely anymore on libmatchbox.  Bingo!

matchbox-panel_2.0 has been released on 2008-11-14, with no
announcement:

  http://matchbox-project.org/sources/matchbox-panel/2.0/

Indeed, this version obeys ~/.Xresources Xft.dpi settings.  The package
is ready to be uploaded, but:

1) it would be a source NMU, which I refuse to do

2) AFAIK there is no easy path for upgrades, since the command line
   options have changed (e.g. applets are now defined at start)

3) some icons are missing or are not clear enough (dark gray on light
   gray), it would be better to fix them before uploading

4) there is a big issue with the new launcher, which shows no icons
   becuase of "Valid key file could not be found in search dirs", this
   must be fixed before uploading (quite surely a path problem)

Moray, how do you prefer I publish all my changes for you to review
them?  Should I update a preliminary version to the pkg-fso repository?
I have also thought about co-maintenance, but my package list is already
(too) crowded and is it really worth keeping/fixing Matchbox or is there
any viable alternative?  The last survey I made was on February 2009,
AFAIK nothing has changed so much:

  http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-fso-maint/2009-February/000607.html

I will work on matchbox-window-manager later :-)

Thx, bye,
Gismo / Luca

-- System Information:
Debian Release: squeeze/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: armel (armv4tl)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.28-20090105.git69b2aa26 (PREEMPT)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C (charmap=ANSI_X3.4-1968)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages matchbox-window-manager depends on:
ii  libc6                         2.9-12     GNU C Library: Shared libraries
ii  libexpat1                     2.0.1-4    XML parsing C library - runtime li
ii  libmatchbox1                  1.9-4      shared library for Matchbox Projec
ii  libstartup-notification0      0.10-1     library for program launch feedbac
ii  libx11-6                      2:1.2.1-1  X11 client-side library
ii  libxext6                      2:1.0.4-1  X11 miscellaneous extension librar
ii  libxsettings-client0          0.17-5     utility functions for the Xsetting

matchbox-window-manager recommends no packages.

matchbox-window-manager suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information
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