Enhancement: different font (sizes) for different outputs

[kb100]

I suggest that i3 allows a different font for each output. I have multiple monitors that have vastly different resolutions and pixel densities. I would like to have a different font size for each of these monitors, both for window titles and for bars. E.g. in my config I would like to be able to put something like

font {
    pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 15
    output DP1
    output HDMI1
}

font {
    pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
    output VGA1
}

And similarly for the bar

bar {
    status_command i3blocks
    font {
        pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 15
        output DP1
        output HDMI1
    }

    font {
        pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
        output VGA1
    }

}

Of course I don't know exactly how fonts are handled in i3 so if there is a more natural syntax for the config whatever works is fine. I hope you get the idea of what I'm trying to do though.

Note: I know that for bars I can simply make two separate bar blocks, each of which outputs on a different monitor and has its own font. This does not solve my issue because each block would spawn its own copy of i3blocks, and I only want one i3blocks running because my (1) i3blocks calls a few long-lived processes, and (2) some of those processes need read/write locks on certain files, so having two running simultaneously would not work.

I guess another possible solution, just for bars, would be to allow the status_command of a bar to be copied from another bar, as in something like

bar {
    id bar1
    status_command i3blocks
    font pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 15
    output DP1
    output HDMI1
    }

bar {
    status_command [copy="bar1"]
    pango:DejaVu Sans Mono 10
    output VGA1
}

Let me know if you think either of these solutions is viable/likely to be implemented.

[stapelberg]

Note: I know that for bars I can simply make two separate bar blocks, each of which outputs on a different monitor and has its own font. This does not solve my issue because each block would spawn its own copy of i3blocks, and I only want one i3blocks running because my (1) i3blocks calls a few long-lived processes, and (2) some of those processes need read/write locks on certain files, so having two running simultaneously would not work.

I’d suggest to wrap i3blocks in such a way that one instance generates output and an arbitrary number of processes can pick up that output. That way, no code changes in i3 are necessary.

[orestisfl]

Closing because this is too much effort that ultimately should be fixed with xrandr's scale or wrapping i3blocks as mentioned