bud/gtk-alt-font
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Start programs with an alternative GTK font
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README.md

This script will temporarily set a alternative GTK_FONT while launching a COMMAND. I like to use a very specific font that doesn't work if displayed in other sizes than 12 or if it is decorated with bold or italics as my GTK system font. It is usually not a problem since it is possible to set up rules for fonts in fontconfig. But Chromium based applications (including f.i. electron), ignores the fontconfig settings. This combined with the trend among webdevs to use system-ui as the font on webpages makes the web unreadable.

It is possible to start such applications with alternative gtk settings files. But it is a bit hacky, and you need to keep track of gtk2,gtk3,gtk4 settings for it to work reliably.

I use Xfce and the settingsdaemon: xfsettingsd, which is a better way to edit the GTK settings (if you for instance, change the GTK_THEME or font it will update on the fly in both GTK2, GTK3, GTK4). It comes with a command line utility xfconf-query, but it is quite complicated to use and remember its syntax.

So this script simply uses xfconf-query to get the current gtk font, store it in a variable, then use xfconf-query to change the font to the content of the environment variable GTK_ALT_FONT, (defaults to "Noto Sans 12") sleep 3 seconds (override with --sleep) in the background while launching a COMMAND , and then revert to the original font.

Below are two screenshots of this repo opened in VSCode:
code .
code-default

gtk-alt-font -- code .
code-fixed

installation

Build dependencies:

  • GNUmake
  • gawk
  • bash

Runtime dependencies:

  • xfconf-query
  • xfsettingsd (*needs to be running in the background)

(configure the installation in config.mak, if needed)

$ git clone https://github.com/budRich/gtk-alt-font.git
$ cd gtk-alt-font
$ make
# make install
$ gtk-alt-font -h
usage: gtk-alt-font [OPTIONS] -- COMMAND


-f, --font    FONT    | override GTK_ALT_FONT
-h, --help            | print help and exit  
-t, --sleep   SECONDS | SECONDS before reverting back the font
--verbose             | detailed output to STDERR 
-v, --version         | print version info and exit