Font Sizes in some Apps are to small

[thinman]

HI! I have a 4K monitor so I set up KDE Plasma with larger fonts. I intentionally kept the overall screen scaling at 100% as I need that screen real estate in some software (Blender, Gimp, etc.)
Most of the apps behave correctly (Kate, Dolphin and other KDE Apps) but there are many which appear with tiny fonts. Pamac UI, Evolution Email, Gparted and some more.
Is there any way to get these programs to follow the font settings from the KDE-Settings?

[maycne.sonahoz]

@thinman

there are many which appear with tiny fonts. Pamac UI, Evolution Email, Gparted and some more.
Is there any way to get these programs to follow the font settings from the KDE-Settings?

Those use GTK instead of Qt, so they may either not fully respect KDE settings, or have GTK specific settings overriding those from KDE.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GTK

[winnie]

Not perfect, but can help:

Scaling individual applications in KDE Plasma

For GTK3 applications: env GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.25 somegtkapp For Qt5 applications: env QT_SCALE_FACTOR=1.25 someqtapp Replace 1.25 with your preferred scaling. I believe there’s a different variable used for “fonts only”, however. (But the above should do what you’re looking for.) I also believe you might introduce glitches if you veer away from 25% increments. So these work best: .5, .75, 1, 1.25, 1.5, 1.75, 2, etc… If you’re happy with it, make a custom shortcut or .desktop entry, and repl…

---

It’s not 100% full-proof, but worth a shot.

I used examples for Qt, but the same concept works for GTK counter-parts.

So for example, you’d modify the Pamac Tray Plasma .desktop file’s Exec entry to look something like:

Exec=env GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.25 pamac-tray-plasma

Obviously, custom .desktop for applications should be copied/created under $HOME/.local/share/applications/

[thinman]

Thank you! It’s a good workaround for this very annoying problem. It works on most of the mentioned software.
Strange is, that if I right click for example the Evolution entry in the Plasma Startup and change the Command to env GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.5 evolution, it saves this entry. If I try to do this on the Pamac entry (env GDK_DPI_SCALE=1.5 pamac-manager %U), the change is not getting saved.

I love Unix/Linux but these kind of quirks are really ruining the experience, especially for new users.
I was working with IRIX (SGI’s Unix version) for over ten years and still love how it was just working.
(Sure, one vendor == far less problems) Still, it would be great to see such a hassle free operation on Linux as well…

[maycne.sonahoz]

@maycne.sonahoz

Highlight the solution

If someone does provide a solution to your thread, please mark it so. This way, other users sharing your issue will instantly know what to do. This will also show the thread as resolved when browsing and searching.

[winnie]

@thinman

If I try to do this on the Pamac entry

Pamac (Tray Plasma) is already running (in the tray), so you won’t see any changes. (It’s an auto-start application.) When you “launch” it, you’re really just restoring the hidden window.

If you want the changes to apply, you need to edit this entry:

cp -v /etc/xdg/autostart/pamac-tray-plasma.desktop $HOME/.config/autostart/

kate $HOME/.config/autostart/pamac-tray-plasma.desktop

Those are two commands, one after the other. (Ignore any errors when you run kate from a terminal. Or if you prefer, use nano instead of kate.)

Now when you login to KDE, it should work.

The entry in your application launcher is a manual “open up Pamac Manager” entry. If Pamac is already running (in the tray), then clicking this icon in the launcher simply restores the window.