Larger fonts, please
#1
Lightbulb 
Hi. I'm using Alaska skin and, like any other skin, I have trouble reading the plot and the synopsis info on my TV screen. The fonts are just too small!

I got a 22" LCD Full-HD display and I'd like to be able to read the plot info from my bed. hahahaha I'm not kidding. Sorry for that.

What about something that when you hover the text you can highlight/increase the text size?

It would be nice for many people, as well.
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#2
You could always just edit your Font.xml file as needed.
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#3
hikaricore Wrote:You could always just edit your Font.xml file as needed.

- not easy for everyone
- needs to be done every time the skin gets updated
(you may say: save the file and reapply to the updated skin... but what happens if the file changes upstream ? How many bug would be filed ?)

The best solution for me is to provide, once and for all, 3 fontsets: actual, bigger, massive.
That would be selectable via XBMC Appearance (where you choose the skin to use)

A few months ago I used a skin who had this. Mediastream maybe, I don't remember.
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#4
I don't think you realise just how much work that would actually involve.

I compared the font sizes with MediaStream 'Default' and 'Massive', and to be honest, I think Alaska's is more visible.

Image

Image

Image

It sounds like you need a more suitable skin for your set up -

http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?tid=57227
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#5
the display is to blame... if you do the math as THX recommends, the 22'' display must be watched from 0,6m distance. These days there are phones with that display Big Grin
The Alaska font looks as good as it gets.
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#6
Please don't change a thing about the font, it is perfect!
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#7
Thumbs Up 
Well, I don't think it looks perfect TO ME. I mean, that's the best skin so far. But it would be nice if we could adjust the info plot font size through the gui.

Anyway, well, I've managed to change the Fonts.xml file and I've also enabled the "scroll plot info" option in Alaska settings.

Thank you so much, guys! You're the best!!!!!
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#8
I don't know what happened to Mediastream in the last 34 months, but I can remember "massive" as somewhat bigger.

@turbinez
No one is asking to change a thing to the fonts, but to add 1-2 bigger fontsets for the user to choose.

@Hitcher
Surely I don't realize how much work it takes.
My ingenuity, I tought all it took was to create (cut/paste) a new "definition" for the whole fontset, with just bigger sizes, and hook it to an appearance setting. Perhaps it's way more difficult to be done... but still, I think that would be worth the hassle...
And, Alaska is the theme for us. I'm not gonna change my best choice just for a matter of fonts, and the whole discussione raised just to help to improve it as far as we could contribute, our way Smile

If the way to be done is to manually tinker Font.xml every time the skin receives an update... I'll do that.
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#9
Problem is even if hitch has to work 2 font sizes, he then has to check that they work properly with every single section of the skin.
You can probably imagine how many areas include text and each one must be aligned and positioned to fit properly as to not overlap.
It's a god damn pain in the ass. Trust me... I'm not a skin master but I know my way around code and this sort of request is a heavy order.

On top of that he'd have to go through and make each and every area of the skin that includes text operate based on the setting.
That alone is a few hours of work for something that isn't really even needed by 95% of the userbase.

As I said before your best bet is to exit Font.xml.
Worst case you can lockdown git so it doesn't update Font.xml ever, or you can just change the few sections you need each time.
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#10
chareos Wrote:@Hitcher
Surely I don't realize how much work it takes.
My ingenuity, I tought all it took was to create (cut/paste) a new "definition" for the whole fontset, with just bigger sizes, and hook it to an appearance setting. Perhaps it's way more difficult to be done... but still, I think that would be worth the hassle...
And, Alaska is the theme for us. I'm not gonna change my best choice just for a matter of fonts, and the whole discussione raised just to help to improve it as far as we could contribute, our way Smile

If the way to be done is to manually tinker Font.xml every time the skin receives an update... I'll do that.

Unfortunately it's not just a matter of changing a few values in Font.xml. To really do it properly you have to adjust positioning and sizes of controls in every screen and take in to account things like text lengths when dealing with movie titles for instance.

For me, there's nothing worse than having text scrolling all over the place due to improperly positioned / sized text controls. Scrolling text just looks...unprofessional. Now if XBMC could autosize texts and choose the best font size to fit the text in the space provided, that would be a major blessing!

Hikaricore beat me to it...hehe
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#11
I use xbox on an older style tube tv and couldn't see it very well so I just edited the font.xml in the 720p folder. You can take a copy of mine it might work better for you. Just remember if you update alaska you will loose it so make an extra copy and put it in there as font.save.xml Smile


Code:
<!--Alaska-->

<fonts>

    <fontset id="Default" unicode="true">

        <font>
            <name>Font_Channels</name>
            <filename>alaska_condblack.ttf</filename>
            <size>26</size>
            <linespacing>0.6</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_Res</name>
            <filename>alaska_condblack.ttf</filename>
            <size>28</size>
            <linespacing>0.6</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_Aspect</name>
            <filename>alaska_condblack.ttf</filename>
            <size>24</size>
            <linespacing>0.6</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_PosterRating</name>
            <filename>alaska_condblack.ttf</filename>
            <size>28</size>
            <linespacing>0.6</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_HomeSelected</name>
            <filename>alaska_menu.ttf</filename>
            <size>80</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_HomeNotSelected</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>40</size>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_Settings</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>30</size>
            <linespacing>1</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Large</name>
            <filename>Arial.ttf</filename>
            <size>36</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Small</name>
            <filename>Arial.ttf</filename>
            <size>14</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>font13</name>
            <filename>Arial.ttf</filename>
            <size>14</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_Time</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>42</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_MainMenu</name>
            <filename>alaska_menu.ttf</filename>
            <size>230</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_Date</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>21</size>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_RSS</name>
            <filename>alaska_thin.ttf</filename>
            <size>21</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_RSS_Big</name>
            <filename>alaska_light_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>27</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_NowPlayingArtist</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>27</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_NowPlayingTrack</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>27</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_PosterTitle</name>
            <filename>alaska_condblack.ttf</filename>
            <size>43</size>
            <linespacing>0.6</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_InfoPlot</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>36</size>
            <linespacing>1</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_InfoYear</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>46</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_InfoDetails</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>34</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_InfoCast</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>32</size>
            <linespacing>0.87</linespacing>      
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_InfoGenre</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
            <linespacing>0.8</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodeTitleNF</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodeLabelF</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodeDetailNF</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodePlot</name>
            <filename>alaska_light_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
            <linespacing>0.8</linespacing>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodePlot2</name>
            <filename>alaska_light_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>32</size>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_TVShow</name>
            <filename>alaska_light_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>42</size>
            <linespacing>1</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_EpisodeNumber</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>45</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ProgressDialog</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_SettingsHeading</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_SettingsDetail</name>
            <filename>alaska_light_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTitleBig</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTitleBigger</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>42</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTitle</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTitleNF</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>35</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTrackNF</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>30</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_OSDDetail</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>17</size>
            <linespacing>0.82</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListDetailNF</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>17</size>
            <linespacing>0.82</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListTrack</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>38</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListDetail</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
            <linespacing>0.82</linespacing>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_MediaMenu</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>25</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_MenuValue</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>36</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_MenuLabel</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>27</size>
        </font>    

        <font>
            <name>Font_MainMenuLabel</name>
            <filename>alaska_regular.ttf</filename>
            <size>31</size>
        </font>    
        <font>
            <name>Font_FileBrowserHeading</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>42</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_FileBrowserHeading</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>42</size>
        </font>

        <font>
            <name>Font_ListSmall</name>
            <filename>alaska_light.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
        </font>

        <!--#Pragma Keyboard -->
        <font>
            <name>Font_KeyboardKeys</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>19</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_KeyboardTitle</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>19</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_KeyboardShapes</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>19</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_ListPlay</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>60</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_KeyboardEdit</name>
            <filename>alaska_nocaps.ttf</filename>
            <size>21</size>
        </font>

        <!--#Pragma FileManager-->
        <font>
            <name>Font_FileManagerItemCount</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
        </font>    

        <!--#Pragma Favourites-->
        <font>
            <name>Font_FavouritesLabel</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>50</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_FavouritesItemLabel</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>20</size>
        </font>
        <font>
            <name>Font_FavouritesFocusedItemLabel</name>
            <filename>alaska_black.ttf</filename>
            <size>30</size>
        </font>


    </fontset>
</fonts>

Just copy and paste the code into wordpad and save it as font.xml then replace your current one with it.
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