The following only concerns systems using X and the client-side font rendering framework from freedesktop.org. Windows and Mac OS X are not affected. Starting with version 8.5, Tk uses freetype and fontconfig by default to render fonts on platforms that support it. Gitk currently defaults to the font Helvetica for the interface and Courier for diffs, and both unfortunately look rather bad on screen in the default configuration on many Linux distros with anti-aliasing and poor hinting. It is better to default to "sans" and "monospace", which are mapped by fontconfig to some appropriate font of the sysadmin and user's choosing (typically Bitstream Vera Sans and Mono). The result looks more sensible and it makes gitk feel like a well-behaved software citizen since its fonts match other native apps. This patch does not change the appearance of gitk for users that have already run it, since gitk uses the remembered UI and diff font names from ~/.gitk Requested-by: Michael Biebl <biebl@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@xxxxxxxxx> --- Hi, A variant of this patch that just unconditionally set the fonts has been in Debian for more than a year, but just now I finally got around to making it conditional. Tested with tk 8.5 (where fontconfig is used) and tk 8.4 (where it isn't) and the autodetection seems to work. Sensible? Jonathan gitk-git/gitk | 5 +++++ 1 file changed, 5 insertions(+) diff --git a/gitk-git/gitk b/gitk-git/gitk index 64ef3c40..6981cb20 100755 --- a/gitk-git/gitk +++ b/gitk-git/gitk @@ -11426,6 +11426,11 @@ if {[tk windowingsystem] eq "aqua"} { set mainfont {{Lucida Grande} 9} set textfont {Monaco 9} set uifont {{Lucida Grande} 9 bold} +} elseif {![catch {::tk::pkgconfig get fontsystem} xft] && $xft eq "xft"} { + # fontconfig! + set mainfont {sans 9} + set textfont {monospace 9} + set uifont {sans 9 bold} } else { set mainfont {Helvetica 9} set textfont {Courier 9} -- 1.7.9.2 -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe git" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html