Huge fonts on HiDPI displays

[jellybob]

I've just installed Atom from a git checkout on Ubuntu 12.10, and the attached screenshot is what I see (I've shrunk the editor font size). I'm assuming that fonts aren't really meant to be that large.

[jbt]

I'm seeing this too - I'm guessing it has something to do with the recent bump to atom-shell 0.18 and detecting hidpi when it shouldn't? Also mine seems to have lost the main menubar at the same time. (Edit I've reported the menubar thing as a separate issue over on atom-shell)

[benderunit]

Starting atom with setting this flag --force-device-scale-factor=1 helped for me.

[qstrahl]

Also experiencing this issue. Also fixed by --force-device-scale-factor=1.

[nylki]

Interestingly, and contrasting to how gnome handles hidpi support (in gnome you can only set scaling to 1 or 2) you can use any scaling you want. I tried it with 1.8, 1.6, 1.4, 1.2 etc.
Atom renders accordingly. I suggest putting the option to let the user change this in atoms preferences.
With some changes in your stylesheet this could turn out to be a proper hidpi support.
To have other elements, like the treeview scaled, I use this local stylesheet on my 170dpi screen.

The following screenshots were made from atom run with different scale factors.

atom --force-device-scale-factor=1.4

atom --force-device-scale-factor=1.6

atom --force-device-scale-factor=1.8

One problem I have noticed though are menus. The menu entries are too narrow for the bigger text.

[smox]

Same issue here, also fixed with --force-device-scale-factor=1
But first time, the only way to start atom with this parameters I was forced to use sudo.
I changed the ownership recursive from the .atom folder to my user. Now it is working without sudo.

I use Ubuntu 14.04, I hope it helps! If you have any questions, pls feel free to ask!

gz,
michael

[torpedro]

Also experiencing the same issue. I'm on Linux Mint (Ubuntu based) with 1920x1080. --force-device-scale-factor=1 resolves the issue when running from the command line. I think in chromium you can manually set and persist this flag under chrome://flags. Maybe you can access those flags from atom?

[vitalykorolev]

Same here.. Ubuntu 14.04 with 1920x1080 screen and the flag resolves the issue.
The bug wasn't in 0.136 and is still in 0.138

[jravetch]

Ubuntu 14.04 with 0.138. I see the huge fonts too when running from the Launcher. Using the flag from the cli does work.

[bsphere]

same here with Ubuntu 14.04 and 0.138

[GreatWizard]

I have the same problem with Ubuntu 14.04 and atom 0.138.

[jravetch]

@zcbenz How do I upgrade atom-shell?

[zcbenz]

@jravetch You can either wait for the next release of atom or build atom manually.

[maxlevesque]

Atom 0.138.0 (update came today) and Linux 3.13.0-37 Ubuntu 14.04 amd64 (no idea if it's important) and problem is still here.

[lee-dohm]

@maxlevesque If you look at the commit referenced in the pull request (02e91aa), the fix didn't show up until v0.139.0.

[LukeCarrier]

As of 0.139.0, the menu bars appear to be scaled twice (Fedora 20).

[vitalykorolev]

The bug is gone for me as of 0.139
Ubuntu 14.10

[maxlevesque]

Bug gone also for me (0.139 and Ubuntu 14.10). Thanks!

[samtuke]

I have this issue with fresh download of 0.150.0 on Fedora 20. The workaround also fails:

$ atom --force-device-scale-factor=1.4
bash: --force-device-scale-factor=1.4: command not found...

[codepope]

Fedora 21 RC1, Atom 1.52.0, still seeing the giant menu bar fonts. This ain't aesthetic, it's breaking usability - most menu items are unreadable, doubly so where there's a short cut.

[samtuke]

Upgraded to Fedora 21, same issue also.

[JacobHenner]

Same issue on Arch (with the huge menu bar).

[vks]

I also have huge, unusable menus.

How does Atom decide how large the menu bar is rendered? I have a high dpi display, and increasing Xft.dpi in ~/.Xresources makes Atom's menu huge and unusable. It seems it uses some custom way to draw the menus and screws it up.

[gausie]

I am having the same problem as vks and LukeCarrier on Ubuntu 14.10 with Gnome 3.14 Shell

[bjames301]

Same issue here. Huge font on menu bar.

[ockham]

Fedora 21, same issue. @zcbenz can you reopen? Or do you want us to file a new issue?

[mylanconnolly]

I am not sure if this helps much, but I use Gentoo Linux. I recently patched webkit-gtk version 2.4.8 to fix some fuzziness in Empathy and Geary and after I did that I noticed Atom has the huge menubars, as shown by @LukeCarrier. Prior to patching, the menus appeared small as expected.

Perhaps Fedora (and others) apply the hidpi patch (or some equivalent) by default?

I have created a gist with the contents of the relevent patch (which was grabbed from the ArchLinux AUR package webkitgtk-hidpi).

[mnquintana]

For anyone following this, this is still blocked – Atom needs to update to a version of Electron built on Chrome 43, which won't be till after this PR updating Atom to a version of Electron built on Chrome 42 is merged.

[Zireael07]

Chrome 43 as I heard had some bugs of its own?

[batjko]

Yes, 42 is already breaking a few things apparently, which is why upgrading to it for Atom is somewhat delayed.
They are thinking of maybe going straight to 43, once the incompatibilities have been sorted out.

[blasterbug]

Same problem on debian sid with openbox, whatever I used atom --force-device-scale-factor=1.4 or --force-device-scale-factor=0.4...

[fibasile]

I'm using an HiDpi monitor but set at half the resolution (1920x1080), had this problem too. Solved it with gsettings set org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor 1

[liaowang11]

Solution from @fibasile works like a charm. Thanks.

[blasterbug]

OK, fix perfectly the problem.

[mylanconnolly]

Just to clarify for people who may not be aware, the solution @fibasile is proposing is a workaround that disables Gnome's HiDPI setting (instead, rendering at native resolution). At that point, Atom does look as-expected only because HiDPI is no longer in use.

If you are okay with working at native resolution, you might want to do that anyway for the increased real estate, however it doesn't really solve the root cause. It is a good suggestion in the meantime, though.

[naftulikay]

The solution proposed by @fibasile doesn't correct my problem. My problem is that Atom should be scaling up to 2x on my HiDPI display (on Linux), and it isn't, regardless of whether I pass --force-device-scale-factor 2 or any other number.

The value of org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor is the special value 0, which means that scaling should be done per monitor. I don't have any external monitors connected presently, but everything else including Google Chrome works properly. Please see these screenshots to see the problem, Atom should be scaling up like everything else, but isn't:

Windows on the left are scaling properly, with Atom on the right not scaling properly. Please see the closed #8035 for my exact setup.

[JacobHenner]

The menus are still way too large in 1.0.11, GNOME, Arch Linux.

[varemenos]

@JacobHenner afaik, this is not live yet, you will have to build it yourself from the source or wait for the release that uses Electron v0.30.6

[margaritis]

El Capitan 10.11.1, Ultrawide (2560 x 1080)

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