[NETBEANS-2360] HiDPI scaling (and anti-aliasing on KDE) not applied automatically on Linux

• Type: Bug
• Status: Resolved
• Priority: Major
• Resolution: Fixed
• Affects Version/s: 11.0, 12.2
• Component/s: platform - Launchers&CLI
• Labels: HiDPI Linux pull-request-available

Environment

Kubuntu 18.03
Oracle JDK 11.0.2

• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: Eirik Bakke
• Created: 07/Apr/19 13:52
• Updated: 19/Apr/22 21:31
• Resolved: 19/Apr/22 21:31

Description

Running NetBeans 11 on Kubuntu 18.03, GUI text size does not seem to take into account the system's default HiDPI scaling. This was reported in a Twitter thread on https://twitter.com/nicktail/status/1114789604337405952 . Note that Window decorations seem to be the correct size.

Setting the GDK_SCALE environment variable seems to fix the problem, if I understand the originally reporter correctly. This could probably be done easily from the NetBeans launcher script (netbeans/bin). But it wouldn't fix the problem in multi-monitor setups. We should investigate what could be done to make scaling work properly in multi-monitor setups involving one HiDPI screen and one non-HiDPI screen.

Before merging a patch to the launcher script, it should be tested on a couple of different Linux environments, using both HiDPI and non-HiDPI screens. Note that the UNIX launcher script is also used on MacOS.

Issue Links

• Dependent: NETBEANS-2617 Redraw common icons in SVG
• incorporates: NETBEANS-765 HiDPI resolution of 3840x2160 results in tiny icons and text fields that are too small for the text within (Linux)
• incorporates: NETBEANS-2955 Menu font is ways too big on a HiDPI monitor (Linux)
• links to: GitHub Pull Request #3113
• mentioned in: Page Loading...