Ways to take advantage of high resolution screen on a smallish screen laptop? [Solved]

[Danathar]

Can anybody here make recommendations as to the best way to take advantage of a small screen (14 inches) laptop that has high resolution (2560x1440) on KDE? What do people do? I'd rather not just move to a lower resolution, I'd like to take advantage but still be able to see text. is the scaling option the way to go in prefs? Is there a better way to do it?

thanks!

[CharlesV]

Have you tried using the global scale on Display Configuration?

This has seemed to be the best all around for me.

[Danathar]

Have you tried using the global scale on Display Configuration?

This has seemed to be the best all around for me.

Yea, I guess that will work, I had some issues the other day doing that (not everything scaled right). Just doing some lite searches on the internet seem to have people messing with DPI settings, etc. I have it set right now %150 percent.

[CharlesV]

Yes, I have seen a few applications not adhere to that, and I also have had issues with 150% .. but 125% seemed to work well for me.

On xfce, the best method I had seen is to change the fonts and sizes under MX Tweak, however that doesnt exist on kde. Possibly there is a way to change fonts and sizes ( globally ) and make up a little difference there. Someone that has more KDE knowledge may have anoter answer.

[MXRobo]

Maybe: https://dpi.lv/#2560%C3%971440 Change it to 14"

[skallal]

On xfce, the best method I had seen is to change the fonts and sizes under MX Tweak, however that doesnt exist on kde. Possibly there is a way to change fonts and sizes ( globally ) and make up a little difference there. Someone that has more KDE knowledge may have anoter answer.

I'd like to know what those settings are for XFCE. I have a small Asus laptop with a 13" screen. The resolution maxes out at 1920x1080, which is hard on my senior eyes. I usually use the desktop zoom feature but it can be a little awkward to use. My other solution is to set the resolution to 1600x900, but I'd prefer to use the max resolution.

If you have suggestions we can start a topic in another sub forum.

[Danathar]

One additional note for anyone attempting to solve this issue: although percentage scaling worked for me on KDE, there's a problem. X11 does not support per-monitor scaling. So, if you have a high-resolution screen, like a laptop, and a couple of attached screens with lower resolutions, the scaling percentage is applied to all of them. This isn't the case with Wayland. When I adjusted the settings there, I was able to set a different scaling for each attached monitor.

[CharlesV]

@skallal I typically do the following and it creates a very nice 'larger' size.

Note: no scaling or anything, I start with a standard fresh install and size.

MX Tweak - Window Manager:
After choosing the theme ( Typically MX Thick Border - with my modified edges )
- Change the window title font to DejaVu Sans Bold - 14

Then over to MX Tweak - Appearance: and change:
- Default Font: DejaVu Sans Book - 12.5 ( or 13 if you have a really small screen.)
- Default Monospace font: DejaVu Sans Mono Book - 12 ( or again, 13 )

On the side panel, I kick up the size until I am happy - typically 36 to 42 depending upon the screen. I also kick up my icons on desktop as well as thunar - and I use a strong icon set like Obsidian. (Sand for me on white backgrounds looks awesome!)

Thats it! For thunderbird or firefox, I use a custom css that kicks the font's up as well as special icons, but otherwise... that is good for most people (including my 60+yr old eyes.)

One additional note.. I use DejaVu fonts because a) I like them, but b) it is a slightly darker, more smooth font and shows better I think. If you have a font you particularly like, and it shows well - give it a try.

[Danathar]

@skallal I typically do the following and it creates a very nice 'larger' size.

Note: no scaling or anything, I start with a standard fresh install and size.

MX Tweak - Window Manager:
After choosing the theme ( Typically MX Thick Border - with my modified edges )
- Change the window title font to DejaVu Sans Bold - 14

Then over to MX Tweak - Appearance: and change:
- Default Font: DejaVu Sans Book - 12.5 ( or 13 if you have a really small screen.)
- Default Monospace font: DejaVu Sans Mono Book - 12 ( or again, 13 )

On the side panel, I kick up the size until I am happy - typically 36 to 42 depending upon the screen. I also kick up my icons on desktop as well as thunar - and I use a strong icon set like Obsidian. (Sand for me on white backgrounds looks awesome!)

Thats it! For thunderbird or firefox, I use a custom css that kicks the font's up as well as special icons, but otherwise... that is good for most people (including my 60+yr old eyes.)

One additional note.. I use DejaVu fonts because a) I like them, but b) it is a slightly darker, more smooth font and shows better I think. If you have a font you particularly like, and it shows well - give it a try.

Can you screenshot what your Obsidian looks like? I'm always looking at new themes for that though for the most part I use a dark theme and a modified .css color scheme.

[CharlesV]

Certainly... looks like this: