Xfce Forum

Cat Quevara

Member

Registered: 2007-02-06

Posts: 5

Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

Hi!

At first I'd like to say that XFCE 4.4 is excellent! I'm really thinking about ditching the bloated KDE in the corner
Especially now that same annoying bugs that were present in rc's have been ironed out.

But, there is this (quite a big, for me personally) annoyance: I can't choose a different font in (xfce4's) terminal for the individual tabs. I would really like that feature, since usually I like to see as much text as possible on the screen (irssi, regular fooling around), but I also play a lot of nethack. Nethack can't use more than 80 columns (except for the menus, but not for the main map), so it is pointless to use so small a font I generally use. Also, the font I use for other purposes is not large enough for nethack, to the point the game isn't enjoyable. Now I can change the font easily, but doing so changes the font on every tab and window - so I need to constantly switch the font back and forth!

I can do this in Konsole.

So, here's my feature request:

• [size=10pt]It would be useful if a user could temporarily choose a different font size for the currently chosen tab (and only that). This should not affect other terminal tabs and windows, or tabs opened after making the setting.

• [size=10pt]Ideally, there could be profiles for different types of sessions, that each have settings differing from the defaults. User could optionally choose one when starting a new tab (for example by keeping a mouse button pressed down / right clicking on the new tab button and getting a pop-up menu; single short click would open a tab as usual).

Latter one would be a more general solution, that would do what I want. But otherwise I wouldn't need it but it is quite common in some other terminal emulators. (Actually, in KDE's konsole you can't choose a different font for the profiles you've created - this makes the whole profile feature useless for me since that would be the only one thing I'd like to use it for. It used to work in previous KDE's - in 3.2 or so. But you can still choose a different font size manually for a tab, and that wont affect the other tabs already opened.)

Now, I understand that this could not be at the top of the priority list, and also that some might think this would make terminal too bloated. But just wanted to give my opinion. And you never know, maybe there are others who'd find this feature useful.

Also, I'm missing an RSS reader for xfce, but AFAICT there is one WIP(http://svn.xfce.org/listing.php?repname … t=dir&sc=1). Hope we'll see it soon 

Cat Quevara

Member

Registered: 2007-02-06

Posts: 5

Re: Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

I just have to mention (in case there is someone reading this), that I'm not actually sure what are the "profiles" I'm talking about here called in Konsole, since I've used the Finnish translation of Konsole (and KDE), and I'm too lazy to check what they're in English Konsole.

But, however, it seems Konsole has this (IMHO very awkward and quite useless) "double profile" system - the other profile is called teema (probably theme in english), and is used to control the color of the text (and some other) settings, and istunnot (perhaps session in english) that enables the setting of the TERM variable, some shorcut keys and the theme. And, the font setting is completely separate from each of these and can't be saved in either one (but used to be saved in the theme data in an older Konsole version IIRC).

So, IMO, if there is going to be a "profile" feature (or session, theme - call it whatever you want), IMO don't make it as difficult and useless to use as it is in Konsole

Nick

Dev

From: ~

Registered: 2005-02-17

Posts: 1,144

Website

Re: Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

I don't think the Xfce terminal will ever support profiles and why is a different font in the active tabs useful, I mean, you can see which tab is active..?

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Cat Quevara

Member

Registered: 2007-02-06

Posts: 5

Re: Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

I don't think the Xfce terminal will ever support profiles and why is a different font in the active tabs useful, I mean, you can see which tab is active..?

Well... umm, sorry for my English (probably), though I do think it should have been clear from my first post. I never wanted to change the font in the tabs themselves, and wouldn't know how to do that at all, anyways. Just to clarify, I'll give an example:

- I'm running two tabs;
  - TAB1: Nethack
  - TAB2: Irssi

On Irssi I want to see as much text as possible, so, I'm using quite a small Terminal font. But for Nethack, the same font isn't as optimal, as nethack uses a lot of other characters (than letters) that aren't that easy to differentiate from each other. Also, for nethack, any window larger than 80x25 characters is quite useless. Hence, I would like to use a larger font in nethack. And, while playing nethack, I want to change back to irssi once in a while.

Now If I want to change the font, currently, I need to go to the Settings -> Appearance (sorry for possible incoherence caused by Finnish->English translation here) and set the font there. But this changes the font on every terminal window and tab currently open (and should do so). So I need to change the font each time I change the tab to achieve that I want (or make a compromise that isn't optimal for either use). This is what I would have liked to be made automatic; i.e. have an option to control the font on a single terminal tab (oh, sorry I meant an emulated terminal running under a certain terminal tab *sigh* ).

I admit that using profiles would be an overkill and perhaps would make Terminal a bit bloated, but using profiles was just an example. Another way to implement what I wanted would be a shortcut key, or an option in the menus, to change the font size in the currently active tab only. This change should be saved in memory and the currently active tabs appearance only; the default should still be used on every other window and tab open when the user chooses to change back to them (unless their font has been changed in the same way to something different than the default). Also this probably won't be a core feature and not on the top of the priority list.

Feel free to disagree, this is just my preference. I guess I'll just use xterm to run Nethack and forget playing Nethack in XFCE's Terminal. 

dirks

Member

Registered: 2008-04-05

Posts: 6

Re: Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

Feel free to disagree, this is just my preference. I guess I'll just use xterm to run Nethack and forget playing Nethack in XFCE's Terminal. 

I agree. +1. That would be quite nice. Once in a while I want to read some text with long lines that don't fit in the terminal at fullscreen mode without linebreaks. Then I change the font to a smaller one but of course I don't want this for all other tabs too.

Just to state another reason for wanting this

Regards
D.

joelfranco

Member

Registered: 2012-05-04

Posts: 1

Re: Feature Request: Use a different font (size) on individual tabs in terminal

+1. Font size changed quickly could be a nice feature that could let me use the Terminal and forget the gnome-terminal