[Bug 1670222] New: Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

Bug ID: 1670222
           Summary: Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font
                    size being unreadably small
           Product: Fedora
           Version: 29
          Hardware: x86_64
                OS: Linux
            Status: NEW
         Component: eclipse
          Severity: high
          Assignee: [e-mail]
          Reporter: [e-mail]
        QA Contact: [e-mail]
                CC: [e-mail], [e-mail],
                    [e-mail], [e-mail],
                    [e-mail],
                    [e-mail], [e-mail],
                    [e-mail], [e-mail],
                    [e-mail]
  Target Milestone: ---
    Classification: Fedora

Description of problem:
Eclipse help browser fonts are unreadably small

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
eclipse-platform-4.10.0-2.fc29.x86_64

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Launch Eclipse
2. Help=>Help Contents
3. Help browser will open, note size of font in content pane

Actual results:
On a 1080p laptop screen the content font is < 1mm high

Expected results:
The help browser should be helpful and use a readably-sized font, and beyond
that should be user configurable like pretty much everything else in eclipse

Additional info:
This has actually been true since at least fedora 23, though back then I didn't
notice when using a lower resolution screen, and may not have had much occasion
to open the help browser anyway.

The help font resists being changed by any method; it's like it's hard-wired
into the code. Nothing under windows=>preferences=>colors and fonts seems to
have any effect.  There are some promising-looking css files under ~/.eclipse,
but changing all the font sizes to something huge does nothing.

The only thing which touches this problem is to set the desktop (Mate) font
rendering dpi to something ridiculously high, like 200 or 300, but then
everything else is scaled up absurdly.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #1 from Eric Williams  ---
I cannot reproduce the issue on Fedora 29, using Eclipse/SWT build
I20190128-1800.

Does the issue reproduce if you select a clean workspace? Are you using GNOME
as the desktop environment? Please attach a screenshot of the bug.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #2 from Eric Williams  ---
Can't reproduce it using eclipse-platform-4.10.0-2.fc29.x86_64 either.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

Mat Booth  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]
              Flags|                            |needinfo?([e-mail])

--- Comment #3 from Mat Booth  ---
(Setting the need_info flag)

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #4 from Dennis W. Tokarski  ---
(In reply to Eric Williams from comment #2)
> Can't reproduce it using eclipse-platform-4.10.0-2.fc29.x86_64 either.

Hmmm...that prompts a question of my own. What kind of display are you using?
The help window is actually readable for me, though barely, if I have my laptop
connected to a 27" desktop panel. Its builtin panel is 13", which does
aggravate the problem.  On my older low-res (1400x1050) 14" thinkpad it was OK.
While eclipse's behavior in this matter hasn't changed in the last 3 years,
it's only become an issue on more modern higher res gear.  Even then, it's only
an issue because the font is hard-wired.

Do you also mean to say you have a means of changing that font size?  If so I'd
like to know how--that would solve my problem instantly.  I've googled
extensively and found lots of reports from people with the same complaint, but
no solutions which actually work.

As for my installation...

Once I started getting into the weeds on this I needed to simplify things as I
did have a lot of eclipse components installed. So my first step was to

dnf remove `rpm -qa | grep eclipse`
  dnf install eclipse-platform
  cd ~
  rm -rf .eclipse workspace

That's about as minimalist and basic as can be, I think.

Then just launch eclipse and open the help browser. What I get is shown in a
couple of screenshot images which I'll upload momentarily--one for the help
window and one for the whole screen.  For reference, the terminal window in the
latter uses the system monospace font, which you can see is Monospace Regular 8
pt.

As I noted in passing in the original report, I'm using Mate Desktop.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

Dennis W. Tokarski  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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              Flags|needinfo?([e-mail])   |

--- Comment #5 from Dennis W. Tokarski  ---
Created attachment 1524784
  --> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=1524784&action=edit
Eclipse Help Window Screenshot

First image for my comment #4.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #6 from Dennis W. Tokarski  ---
Created attachment 1524785
  --> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/attachment.cgi?id=1524785&action=edit
Eclipse Entire Screenshot

Second image for my comment #4.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #7 from Mat Booth  ---
(In reply to Dennis W. Tokarski from comment #5)
> Created attachment 1524784 [details]
> Eclipse Help Window Screenshot
>
> First image for my comment #4.

Heh, Dennis your screenshots are perfectly readable on my 15 inch 1080p display
-- the help page text is at least 5mm high and the text in the tree widget on
the left is huge :-)

Eric: These pages are rendered in the webkit widget, I think the real bug is
that widget is not respecting the user's configured text sizes, what do you
think? User seems to have a much higher DPI screen than we do :-)

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #8 from Dennis W. Tokarski  ---
(In reply to Mat Booth from comment #7)
> (In reply to Dennis W. Tokarski from comment #5)
> > Created attachment 1524784 [details]
> > Eclipse Help Window Screenshot
> >
> > First image for my comment #4.
>
> Heh, Dennis your screenshots are perfectly readable on my 15 inch 1080p
> display -- the help page text is at least 5mm high and the text in the tree
> widget on the left is huge :-)

How does the help text compare with the terminal text? For me the terminal text
is about twice the size of the help text.

Your 15 inch screen is going make things bigger, but not by that much I
wouldn't expect.

Yeah, the tree font is big. That was another common complaint I found, and
the complaints go back years (ca 2012). I don't understand why the upstream
eclipse devs just ignore this.
> Eric: These pages are rendered in the webkit widget, I think the real bug is
> that widget is not respecting the user's configured text sizes, what do you
> think? User seems to have a much higher DPI screen than we do :-)

Interesting idea. The Xorg log says the server set my dpi to 96x96. In the Mate
font settings I have the font dpi set to 166, which is the screen native
physical
dpi. If I change it to 96 everything becomes microscopic. If I change it to
200,
the help text becomes (just) readable.  If I use xrandr to set dpi to 166x166
then
nothing changes.

Keep in mind that the rendered size which counts as "readable" is pretty
subjective. Your eyes are not my eyes, for which you should be grateful ;(

The lack of configurability here is fundamentally an accessibility issue.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #9 from Eric Williams  ---
I tried on both my laptop screen and my monitors (14" laptop screen @ 1080p and
24" monitors @ 1080p) and I can't reproduce the issue. When I change my scaling
settings in GNOME to 200%, the text in Eclipse's help browser scales properly.
I verified this using Epiphany to read the same help HTML file -- it too is
scaled just like in Eclipse. Now, if I mess around with the font
rendering/scaling in GNOME tweak tool, Eclipse's help system font does not
scale but Epiphany's does.

There could be an SWT issue but I don't know for sure yet. Dennis, can you try
on GNOME with the default system theme (Adwaita)? Sometimes scaling can be
thrown off by the desktop environment, we have seen this in SWT with KDE for
example.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #10 from Dennis W. Tokarski  ---
(In reply to Eric Williams from comment #9)
> I tried on both my laptop screen and my monitors (14" laptop screen @ 1080p
> and 24" monitors @ 1080p) and I can't reproduce the issue. When I change my
> scaling settings in GNOME to 200%, the text in Eclipse's help browser scales
> properly. I verified this using Epiphany to read the same help HTML file --
> it too is scaled just like in Eclipse. Now, if I mess around with the font
> rendering/scaling in GNOME tweak tool, Eclipse's help system font does not
> scale but Epiphany's does.
>
> There could be an SWT issue but I don't know for sure yet. Dennis, can you
> try on GNOME with the default system theme (Adwaita)? Sometimes scaling can
> be thrown off by the desktop environment, we have seen this in SWT with KDE
> for example.

Sure, I'll have to set that up on a VM. It'll take a bit, so stand by.

Although hmmm...if you're using Gnome are you also using Wayland?  And would
that matter?  I should probably first make sure the issue still shows up on
a VM with Mate/Xorg, then try Gnome/whatever-you're-using.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #11 from Eric Williams  ---
(In reply to Dennis W. Tokarski from comment #10)
> (In reply to Eric Williams from comment #9)
> > I tried on both my laptop screen and my monitors (14" laptop screen @ 1080p
> > and 24" monitors @ 1080p) and I can't reproduce the issue. When I change my
> > scaling settings in GNOME to 200%, the text in Eclipse's help browser scales
> > properly. I verified this using Epiphany to read the same help HTML file --
> > it too is scaled just like in Eclipse. Now, if I mess around with the font
> > rendering/scaling in GNOME tweak tool, Eclipse's help system font does not
> > scale but Epiphany's does.
> >
> > There could be an SWT issue but I don't know for sure yet. Dennis, can you
> > try on GNOME with the default system theme (Adwaita)? Sometimes scaling can
> > be thrown off by the desktop environment, we have seen this in SWT with KDE
> > for example.
>
> Sure, I'll have to set that up on a VM. It'll take a bit, so stand by.
>
> Although hmmm...if you're using Gnome are you also using Wayland?  And would
> that matter?  I should probably first make sure the issue still shows up on
> a VM with Mate/Xorg, then try Gnome/whatever-you're-using.

Yes it would matter actually, good call. I am using Wayland.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #12 from Mat Booth  ---
(In reply to Dennis W. Tokarski from comment #8)
> (In reply to Mat Booth from comment #7)
> > (In reply to Dennis W. Tokarski from comment #5)
> > > Created attachment 1524784 [details]
> > > Eclipse Help Window Screenshot
> > >
> > > First image for my comment #4.
> >
> > Heh, Dennis your screenshots are perfectly readable on my 15 inch 1080p
> > display -- the help page text is at least 5mm high and the text in the tree
> > widget on the left is huge :-)
>
> How does the help text compare with the terminal text? For me the terminal
> text
> is about twice the size of the help text.
>
> Your 15 inch screen is going make things bigger, but not by that much I
> wouldn't expect.

It's about the same size as my terminal text. Here, I over-laid onto your
screenshot my terminal and Eclipse Help window so you can compare:
https://fedorapeople.org/~mbooth/eclipse-help.jpg

FWIW, I've never changed any scaling factor or DPI setting away from the
default. But I do always make my terminal font smaller than the default.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

--- Comment #13 from Ben Cotton  ---
This message is a reminder that Fedora 29 is nearing its end of life.
Fedora will stop maintaining and issuing updates for Fedora 29 on 2019-11-26.
It is Fedora's policy to close all bug reports from releases that are no longer
maintained. At that time this bug will be closed as EOL if it remains open with
a
Fedora 'version' of '29'.

Package Maintainer: If you wish for this bug to remain open because you
plan to fix it in a currently maintained version, simply change the 'version' 
to a later Fedora version.

Thank you for reporting this issue and we are sorry that we were not 
able to fix it before Fedora 29 is end of life. If you would still like 
to see this bug fixed and are able to reproduce it against a later version 
of Fedora, you are encouraged  change the 'version' to a later Fedora 
version prior this bug is closed as described in the policy above.

Although we aim to fix as many bugs as possible during every release's 
lifetime, sometimes those efforts are overtaken by events. Often a 
more recent Fedora release includes newer upstream software that fixes 
bugs or makes them obsolete.

[Bug 1670222] Eclipse help browser unusable due to hard-coded font size being unreadably small

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1670222

Ben Cotton  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |CLOSED
         Resolution|---                         |EOL
        Last Closed|                            |2019-11-27 20:51:35

--- Comment #14 from Ben Cotton  ---
Fedora 29 changed to end-of-life (EOL) status on 2019-11-26. Fedora 29 is
no longer maintained, which means that it will not receive any further
security or bug fix updates. As a result we are closing this bug.

If you can reproduce this bug against a currently maintained version of
Fedora please feel free to reopen this bug against that version. If you
are unable to reopen this bug, please file a new report against the
current release. If you experience problems, please add a comment to this
bug.

Thank you for reporting this bug and we are sorry it could not be fixed.