D14869: [RFC] Increase default font sizes by 1 pt

Filip Fila noreply at phabricator.kde.org
Fri Aug 17 16:19:01 BST 2018


filipf added a comment.


  Except it doesn't really boil down to personal preference, unless we're taking eyesight into the equation.
  
  11pt does not just make the fonts look somewhat big, but also increases UI elements, most notably the titlebar (and its buttons) and Kickoff. This is why 13pt titlebars is an even worse idea. This change would most adversely affect lower resolution monitors and I guarantee you'd have complains. Even on a decently sized 1080p monitor it looks too big. On the other hand, there was a good question asked here already: have we had any complaints from the community now regarding the 10pt default?
  
  If we take the 'how it works in other OS' as a line of argumentation, the comparison is invalid; they don't default to 11pt and consequently everything in Plasma would look bigger than what people are used to. Windows is an inconsistent mess, but the most prominent font size is 9pt - what was previously known as icon font size. I have no experience with macOS, but there has been a screenshot here shown.
  
  I've also taken a look at GNOME (Fedora 28). At first glance, Nate was right, there is a major competitor using 11pt as a default:
  
  F6201724: Screenshot from 2018-08-17 10-19-02.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6201724>
  
  This is, however misleading. Cantarell and Noto Sans do not have the same metrics. 11pt Cantarell is in fact the equivalent of 10pt Noto Sans. In the following pics you can see that Noto Sans is substantially bigger at 11pt than Cantarell.
  
  F6201727: Screenshot from 2018-08-17 10-20-45.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6201727>
  
  F6201729: Screenshot from 2018-08-17 10-20-07.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6201729>
  
  Finally, if GNOME were using Noto Sans, they'd be using it at 10pt as well because only then is it comparable to 11pt Cantarell:
  
  F6201734: Screenshot from 2018-08-17 10-25-05.png <https://phabricator.kde.org/F6201734>
  
  And conversely, if we were using Cantarell as the default font we'd use it at 11pt. But defaulting Noto Sans to 11pt would be a mistake.

REPOSITORY
  R119 Plasma Desktop

REVISION DETAIL
  https://phabricator.kde.org/D14869

To: ngraham, #plasma, #kde_applications, valorie, #vdg
Cc: rooty, filipf, safaalfulaij, rikmills, harmathy, rkflx, abetts, davidedmundson, rizzitello, plasma-devel, ragreen, Pitel, ZrenBot, lesliezhai, ali-mohamed, jensreuterberg, sebas, apol, mart
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